VITAL MAGNETISM 

Its Power Over Disease. 



A STATEMENT OF THE FACTS DEVELOPED BY MEN WHO HAVE 

EMPLOYED THIS AGENT UNDER VARIOUS NAMES, AS 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM, MESMERISM, HYPNOTISM, 

ETC., FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES 

DOWN TO THE PRESENT. 



BY 

FREDERICK T. PARSON, 

{Magnetic Physiciati). 



" The essential point, where any question arises respecting 
facts that are extraordinary and difficult to conceive, is not to 
demonstrate how they exist, but to prove that they do exist." 

Nicole. 



NEW YORK: 
ADAMS, VICTOR & CO., PUBLIC 

9S WILLIAM STREET. 

1877. 







■9^ 



'I- 



\ 



-b 



Copyright by 
ADAMS, VICTOR & CO 

1877. 



10- 22.fl3 



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5^9 



PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 



In presenting this volume to the public, the publishers be- 
speak for it the candid attention of the medical profession and 
of the press. 

It will .be found, we think, to present the subject of VITAL 
MAGNETISM in a manner befitting its importance to the 
human race as an agent of beneficence, while it must serve 
greatly to disabuse the minds of intelligent persons of impres- 
sions and prejudices fostered by the use — or rather abuse — of 
this mysterious power by charlatans. 

The author's aim being to reach the discriminating reader, 
he has confined himself to facts whose authenticity is unques- 
tioned, and to the experience of men of eminence in the medi- 
cal and scientific world, whose words and work are conclusive 
as to the power, range and efficiency of VITAL MAGNET- 
ISM, both as a curative agent and as a subject meriting the 
most careful further observation to obtain a more determinate 
knowledge of its true nature and source. 

Of the array of facts and observations here embodied by Dr. 
Parson, those relating to the case of Miss Harriet Martineau 
will command particular attention. This eminent woman had 
what may be termed a marvelous exfierie?ice, which she narrated 
with a minuteness that offered invaluable data to the physician 
and investigator, but her editors and biographers have sup- 
pressed her own record of this wonderful recovery from an 
incurable disorder. Dr. Parson very properly reproduces the 
most essential portions of her singularly interesting narrative. 

As stated in the announcement : " The volume is stuffed with 
facts, giving to theory and speculation upon the nature of the 
principle and its phenomena but one chapter — the object being 
to present the subject of Vital Magnetism in its practical, effi- 
cient and determinant aspect." 

98 William Street, New York, 
October 20th, 1877. 



P 



DEDICATION. 



To my friend Dr. C. E. S., I respectfully dedicate 
the results of reading and observation embodied in 
these papers. 

When you were the honored President of the 
State Medical Convention, and presented facts in 
your possession concerning the treatment of disease 
by Vital Magnetism, there was deep interest mani- 
fested in the subject ; but the total absence of in- 
formation concerning it, on the part of those who 
attempted to discuss it, you pointed out to me, 
and thus prompted me to supply the lack, from 
abundant materials which I had accumulated. 

Hoping, my dear friend, that what is here pre- 
sented may stimulate inquiry and open the treasures 
of this great storehouse of blessing, I am as ever, 
Yours sincerely, 

F. T. PARSON. 



" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreampt of in OUR philosophy." 

" Whoso recognizes the unfathomable, all-pervading domain 
of mystery, which is everywhere under our feet and among our 
hands ; to whom the universe is an oracle and a temple, as 
well as kitchen and cattle stall — he shall be called a mystic, 
and delirious. To him, thou, with sniffing charity, wilt pro- 
trusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, 
when he kicks his foot through it. 

" Wert thou not born ? Wilt thou not die ? Explain me 
all this — or do one of two things : retire into private places 
with thy foolish cackle ; or, what were better, give it up ; or 
weep not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world 
all disembellished and prosaic, but that thou thyself art 
hitherto a sand-blind pedant." 

Carlyle. 



CON TE NTS. 



PAGE 

Dedication • • . 5 

Preface 9 

Magnetism as a Therapeutical Agent II 
Status of the Practice in Great Britain — Views of Emi- 
nent Men 15 

Status of the Practice on the Continent — History of Its 

Development 27 

The Evidence of Reason and Common Sense ... 35 
The Received Hypothesis — Dr. Ashburner's Theory of 

Polarities — Barth's Views : Mesmerism not Miracle 43 
The Principal Therapeutical Effects — Evidence of Emi- 
nent Practitioners . 57 

Anaesthetic Effects of Vital Magnetism . • . 76 

On Qualifications of Magnetic Physicians . . . 80 
Typical Cases : 

The Case of Harriet Martineau .... 85 

The Extraordinary Case of Anne Vials . . 95 

A Double Phenomenon ..... 101 
Case of Uterine Disease with General Nervous 

Derangement 103 

Case of Nervous Suffering Leaving the Patient 

Dumb 106 

Cure of Deafness of Long Standing . . . 108 

Case of Spasmodic Asthma .... 109 
Case of Neuralgia or Painful Nervous Affection 

of the Heart of Many Years' Standing . no 



vi Contents. 

PAGE 

Case of Severe Nervous Disease . . .112 

Epilepsy 114 

Epileptic Hysteria, with Lockjaw and Contrac- 
tion of One Leg 116 

Case of St. Vitus' Dance 118 

Dr. Braid's Experience . ' . . . . 120 

Painless Amputation of the Thigh, &c. . . 124 

English Practitioners and Advocates . . . 131 
Prejudice, Ignorance and Charlatanry no Longer 

Permissible 139 

Theorizing , . . . • 143 

The Testimony of Test 148 

My Own Position 174 

Sympathetic Influence ....... 176 

Dr. Newnham's Exposition of Principles and Plea for 

Investigation and Adoption by the Profession . 183 
The Lessons of History — Shall we be Stupidly Timid 

or Bravely Wise ? — A Warning to Obstructionists . 198 
Appendix. — Dr. Elliotson's Adjuration to the Profession, 
and Dr. Esdaile's Remarkable Protest to the Ame- 
rican Congress — Magnetism the First " Anaes- 
thetic" 217 

Literature of Vital Magnetism .... 225 

Index to Cases in the "Zoist" 231 



PREFACE. 



The object of this work is to furnish, in a condensed form, 
the actual experience of experts, in the treatment of disease 
by Vital Magnetism, whose statements will not be disputed. 

Purely mental phenomena in connection with this force are 
purposely omitted, as they lead to bewildering- speculations, 
such as have swelled other works to great size, but leading 
only to confusion, disgust, or to the neglect of this important 
branch of science by medical men. 

A class of enthusiasts calling themselves healing mediums 
have met with more or less success in the use of this agency, 
and have sought to wrest it into the support of a mis-named 
spiritual philosophy. They have often succeeded only in 
arraying the intelligent against a force which has been known 
from the earliest ages, and which has a wide and benign 
application to the ills of man. 

It is monstrous injustice to permit these pretenders to 
usurp control of such an agency, and to frighten off men 
whose talents and acquirements fit them to investigate its 
facts and to arrange them into scientific order. For there is 
no doubt that healing effects are produced here as elsewhere, 
by the ?nost careful attention to conditions, laws and prin- 
ciples ; and such as fail to recognize these, can expect no 
more success in the use of Vital Magnetism, than those who 
neglect the laws that govern other imponderable forces can 
look for valuable results in their use. It is as much under 
the limitation of Natural Law as any other force, though its 
range is extensive. 



x Preface. 

It is exceedingly desirable that there should be a full anr 1 
impartial investigation of the merits and nature of this power- 
ful agency, which has been hitherto discussed chiefly by men 
who exalted some phenomenal feature into undue prominence. 

Dr. Braid, of Manchester, England, a celebrated surgeon, a 
painstaking investigator of magnetic phenomena, and a suc- 
cessful practitioner of the magnetic art, conceived that he had 
discovered fundamental elements, when he had merely found 
a new method of producing the primary magnetic condition. 
He baptized his supposed original discovery with the name of 
" Hypnotism," and Dr. Brown Sequard refers approvingly to 
this term, and vainly strives to point out a distinction, that 
does not exist, between this and Vital Magnetism. 

While speaking thus, I recommend to all inquirers in this 
department the very able work of Dr. Braid, entitled Neuryft- 
nology. 

My purpose will be gained if I draw attention to this 
important subject from a natural and practical standpoint ; 
while the authors whom I mention will satisfy all those who 
have speculative tendencies, and wish to push their inquiries 
into the deeper mysteries of the subject. 

Many of the laws of this ancient and fascinating science of 
Vital Magnetism are well understood. In order that this 
knowledge may be more generally diffused, and that men of 
learning may have in their hands facts to stimulate them to 
arrive at profounder principles lying at its base, this treatise 
is given to the public. After seventy-five years of opposition 
to the results of _ experiments and observation, these facts 
were found to be stubborn and unanswerable ; and the last 
twenty-five years have witnessed their complete victory over 
prejudice and mere argument ; so that, to-day, the first scien- 
tists and physiologists write and speak of them, not only with 
respect, but also with warmest praise. 



VITAL MAGNETISM. 



i. 



MAGNETISM AS A THERAPEUTICAL AGENT. 

The various names under which Magnetism has 
been known or employed during a century are 
mainly these : Mesmerism, Animal Magnetism, 
Induced Somnambulism, Psychic Force, Nervous 
Force, Mesmeric Sleep-waking, Electro-Biology, 
Perkinism, Electrical Psychology, Pathetism, 
Nervo-vital Force, Psycopathy, Braidism and Hyp- 
notism. Other terms have been applied as some 
new phenomenal feature came to the surface ; 
but the force remained fixed and unchanged in all 
this fluctuation of terminology, because it is one 
of God's immutable agencies. But, in the bitter 
struggle over names, and methods, and their rela- 
tive value, the facts of healing have continued 
uniform, and humanity has gratefully acknowl- ? < 
edged their benefit. 

Dr. John Elliottsen, in the Zoist, an English quar- 
terly journal, published from 1843 to 1856, uses this 
language: 



Vital Magnetism 



" Mesmerism has always been true. Dimly 
known for thousands of years, in barbarous and 
semi-barbarous countries, known as to some of its 
high results to many of the great nations of anti- 
quity, though the knowledge was confined to the 
chosen few, it is only beginning to be seen in its 
various aspects and ramifications, and to assume 
the character of a science — a science of the deepest 
interest and importance — inasmuch as the pheno- 
mena of life transcend those of all inanimate mat- 
ter, and the faculties of the brain — the mind — are 
the highest objects in the universe that man can 
study; and inasmuch as its power over the faculties 
of the body at large, and especially over the whole 
brain and nervous system, is immense, and there- 
fore capable of application to prevent and remove 
suffering, and to cure disease far beyond the means 
hitherto possessed by the art of medicine." 

If we trace magnetism along the ages its foot- 
prints are discernible in ancient literature, on the 
sculptured monuments of Egypt, in the traditions 
of Chaldea, India, Persia, Greece, Judea and Rome, 
upon the early records of Christianity, during the 
Middle Ages, and upon the clearer pages of modern 
history. In barbarous and half-civilized communi- 
ties, men characterized its cures as sacred mysteries, 
as secret remedies, as something magical and occult. 
The unbroken stream of results in healing has flowed 
down, in obedience to the law that is equally perfect 
with the laws of light and heat, of gravitation and 
electricity. The facts are uniform and indisputable. 



Magnetism as a Therapeutical Agent. 1 3 

The experience of antiquity has been amply 
supplemented by the record of the last century, 
showing an unbroken advance, slow but sure. 

The efforts of the schoolmen in the past to estab- 
lish medical systems upon series of facts, involved 
as bitter a warfare upon each other as they have 
ever expended upon the practice of magnetism. At 
first they denied the facts, and when these could no 
longer be disputed, they denounced the practice as 
"magical," and as leagued with the black art J But, 
as the medical schools themselves solidified into 
form, and intelligence spread, the fear of " magic " 
died out ; the cures by magnetism increased and 
were acknowledged, until, later on, Royal Commis- 
sions were appointed to investigate. These learned 
bodies at first found it difficult to be honest and 
unprejudiced, and reported adversely upon side 
issues, but finally with favor, in spite of the ravings 
of members grounded in old beliefs. 

Attacks have now ceased, and to-day the first 
living physiologists commend the practice in high- 
est terms. The main objection now urged, is the 
difficulty of finding properly qualified men to pur- 
sue the practice, as no amount of technical know- 
ledge will make a successful magnetic practitioner 
in the absence of natural endowment. Time will 
remedy all this, and a sufficient force of operators 
will be forthcoming to cope intelligently with a 
vast number of so-called " incurable forms of dis- 
ease," especially of a nervous character, to which 
magnetism is wonderfully adapted. 



14 Vital Magjtetism. 

It is not claimed for this practice that it is a uni- 
versal remedy: no one but a charlatan would put 
forth such a claim; but, that it possesses great re- 
medial powers, when properly applied, and when 
the conditions necessary to success are fully met, 
is unquestionable; and a great number of maladies 
that cannot be relieved by medication will find 
their solution here. 

But the difficulty is, as a well-known modern 
writer has said, in speaking of magnetic practice, 
that — 

" There is certainly something very revolting to 
the pride of the present generation, to admit that 
magnetism, the simple medicine of nature, can do 
what science and art cannot effect; to give up many 
favorite theories and plans of treatment — to lay 
aside the haughtiness of established doctrines — 
and to yield them before the simplicity of a cura- 
tive action, which many have the power to impart, 
though each has not the skill to direct; — and to re- 
vive the practice of thousands of by-gone years — 
years which are only dimly seen through the long 
vista of pity for the ignorance and barbarism with 
which they are marked ; — and then to allow the 
practical value of these long-forgotten processes as 
superior to the present results of science, by adopt- 
ing them. These are difficulties that require no 
small degree of moral courage to surmount." 

This sentiment was uttered thirty years ago. 
The world moves; the battle has been fought, the 
victory won. The period from 1840 to 1852 marked 



Status of the Practice in Great Britain. 1 5 

the grand struggle, and the support of such names 
as lend their splendor to truth, especially among 
medical men, effectively annihilated opposition; no 
public attack has since been made; pride of opinion 
has succumbed; the practice in Europe has become 
well settled ; it is rapidly gaining respect here, 
where it is largely and successfully pursued as a 
specialty. 



II. 



STATUS OF THE PRACTICE IN GREAT BRITAIN 

VIEWS OF EMINENT MEN. 

It must be said that, in this country, we are at 
least twenty-five years behind Europe in the appli- 
cation of Vital Magnetism in the treatment of dis- 
ease. India established a Magnetic Hospital at 
Bengal, under the superintendence of Dr. Esdaile, 
in 1840, which was sustained by the subscriptions 
of the first British residents of that Presidency, in 
which hundreds of the most difficult and dangerous 
surgical operations were performed without pain 
under the anaesthetic effects of magnetism. Two 
hundred and sixty cases were there reported, many 



1 6 Vital Magnetism. 

of which were amputations of a dangerous and 
painful character.* 

A Magnetic Hospital was established in London 
in the year 1846, and for eleven years the most 
astonishing results were obtained from this prac- 
tice exclusively, and were duly reported through 
the columns of The Zoist, the journal devoted to 
that interest, and already alluded to as being edited 
by Dr. Baird. 

The first officers of this institution were — 

The Right Hon. the Earl of Ducie, President. 

Vice-Presidents: Baron De Goldsmid, the Earl of 
Carlisle, R. Monckton Milnes, M. P., J. H. Lang- 
ston, M. P., and Rev. G. Sandby, Jr. 

Treasurer: Mr. Briggs. 

Co?nmittee : Dr. Ashburner, Dr. Elliottsen, Dr. 
Chandler, Dr. Flintoff, Dr. Clark, Dr. J. Hands, Dr. 
D. Hands, Dr. F. G. Johnston, Dr. Symes, Rev. Dr. 
Dixon, Major Buckley, Captain John James, Mr. 
Blythe, Mr. Fradelle, Mr. Kingdom, and Mr. Top- 
ham. 

Its operations for these eleven years were sus- 
tained entirely by popular subscriptions, and among 
its patrons were many of the highest dignitaries of 
Church and State. 

The Earl of Ducie was a nobleman of high posi- 
tion, at the time being Lord-in-Waiting to Her Ma- 



* It will well repay perusal if my readers can obtain a copy 
of Dr. Esdaile's Mesmerism in India, published by H. Bailliere, 
London, or a copy of the reprint issued in this country, I be- 
lieve at Hartford. 



Status of the Practice in Great Britain. 1 7 

jesty, and a member of Dr. Cumming's Scotch 
Church. 

Five years later, after a prosperous career of the 
institution, I find The Most Rev. the Archbishop 
of Dublin President, with the Earl of Stanhope and 
the Earl of Dunraven added to the Board of Direc- 
tors. 

For the grand results obtained I must refer to 
their published annual reports, which would, if re- 
produced, challenge universal attention and respect. 

It will be seen from this that men of the first 
reputation in the realm stood sponsors for the prac- 
tical character of this noble science. 

At the fifth annual meeting, they say, in re- 
viewing the stormy time through which they had 
passed : 

"The world is becoming every day better in- 
formed as to the reality, the curative and assuag- 
ing power, and the innocence of Mesmerism; and 
the English medical profession is now emancipat- 
ing itself from the unfortunate feelings which over- 
powered it for the time twelve years ago." 

A similar institution was established at Exeter, 
and in one of their reports Dr. J. B. Parker, resi- 
dent surgeon, says : " I have performed over two 
hundred surgical operations without the patient's 
feeling the pain whilst under the influence of Mes- 
merism, including twenty most painful operations 
on the eye, tying the radial artery, more than one 
hundred bleedings, cutting off a very painful wart, 
and the extraction of upwards of forty teeth." The 



1 8 Vital Magnetism. 

name and residence of each of these patients is 
given in full, with particulars of each case. 

In 1850, another institution of a similar character 
was opened at Bristol under the name of " The 
Bristol Mesmeric Institute," and under similar 
auspices. Dr. Stevens, in the second annual report 
to the Society, from which I can only make a very 
brief extract, says : 

"When it is considered that almost all the cases 
received have been of the most extreme character 
— some of years standing — and that many of them 
have been rejected as hopeless under ordinary 
treatment, the actual amount of benefit conferred 
ought to be the only just criterion. Amongst these 
cases are comprised several of the most severe 
forms of epilepsy, of paralysis, of hysteria, of ex- 
treme nervous debility with depression ; cases of 
tic-douloureux, with rheumatism, in all its varied 
shapes; spinal disease, with scrofulous affections of 
the hip and knee joint. 

" There have also been several cases of nervous 
dyspepsia, sleeplessness, nervous headaches, acute 
inflammation of local parts, such as the eye, ear 
and throat, which have been subdued by mesmeric 
influence. Several minor painless operations have 
been performed, such as the extraction of teeth, 
and the application of caustic to various parts of 
the body." 

Dr. Lane, in seconding the adoption of the re- 
port, said : 

" It was not a little consolatory to find that Mes- 



Status of the Practice in Great Britain. 19 

merism was wending its way to the shores of the 
Bosphorus, and returning to the country of the 
Ptolemies, in which its great discovery was first 
developed — Egypt — 2,500 years ago. The paint- 
ings in the tomb or pyramid of Sesostris speak in 
higher or lower strains of its adoption and practice 
in the curative art, by the ancient Egyptians. Mes- 
mer only revived it. 

" The Egyptians had an overwhelming example, 
in the case of Miss Martineau, the celebrated and 
useful writer, whose sedentary habits produced 
such derangement of the system as no medicine 
could reach; her physician left her, intimating that 
nothing remained but to smooth the descent to 
death. Here, then, were genius, and taste, and 
talent consigned to the tomb, when Mesmerism 
came, and with a bland and reassuring smile ten- 
dered its aid. In a month, her nightly doses of 
narcotics were rendered nugatory ; excruciating 
pains subsided ; the animal functions gradually re- 
turned to their wonted vigor ; and, in about a 
twelvemonths after, she was discovered writing a 
letter on the Great Pyramid, having ascended to its 
summit without anything more than the ordinary 
fatigue of climbing to so vast a height, over steps 
at least two feet and a-half high ! What a mighty 
triumph for Mesmerism ! 

" But, still greater remained; to get down is infi- 
nitely more difficult than getting up — a task fraught 
with pain and much danger. Men glide from step 
to step by the seat, but women prone on the chest; 



2o Vital Magnetism. 

and then they have to jump from six to eight inches 
to reach the step below, and woe to the she or he 
who shall lose their equilibrium ; bang, bang, you 
go from step to step, till you reach the bottom a 
shapeless and crushed mass ; and all this was ac- 
complished by Miss Martineau by Mesmerism ! "* 

Dr. Barnes, surgeon of Bath, who was present 
at the meeting, said he had " been in the medical 
profession twenty-six years, and for a long time 
had had strong doubts of the truth of Mesmerism. 
His first impression was received from a visit to a 
woman in a state of madness, whom two powerful 
men were unable to hold. He advanced to her, 
fixed his eye upon her, took her hand, and she at 
once fell down under his influence. 

"Afterwards he was sent for to a man whom he 
found with one side completely paralyzed, his arm 
and leg being perfectly lifeless. He made some 
passes over his person, the capillary vessels began 
at once to fill, the warmth returned, and he was 
soon restored, and a few days ago carried two hun- 
dred weight for a mile and upwards. Four days 
ago he (Dr. Barnes) was called to see a child who 
had been in fits for a fortnight, and under the care 
of the hospital surgeons. She was insensible, kept 
incessantly rolling about her head in a shocking 
way, and had not spoken for many days. The mo- 
ment that he touched the top of her head the roll- 

* See Section IX., " Typical Cases," for the interesting details 
of this memorable case, as given in Miss Martineau's own ver- 



,. 



Status of the Practice in Great Britain. 21 

ing motion was stayed; she soon became perfectly- 
still, and smiled at him, and directly afterwards she 
spoke. He left her greatly recovered, and the next 
morning her mother told him that in an hour after 
his leaving her she asked to be dressed, and was as 
perfectly well as ever she was in her life. This might 
seem to be a miracle, but it was the result of a 
principle which could be explained upon scientific 
grounds. He had produced similar effects in fever, 
and in lumbago and sciatica." 

Another Mesmeric Institute was established in 
Dublin, in the year 1852, under the patronage of 
His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, of which 
Falconer Mills was president. The following pros- 
pectus clearly sets forth its objects and the prin- 
ciples adopted for its guidance. It is typical of all 
the institutions named in this connection in utterly 
repudiating the superstitious assumptions of super- 
naturalism, and placing the practice upon a purely 
scientific basis : 

"The Committee of the Dublin Mesmeric Asso- 
ciation, in appealing to their fellow-citizens in 
behalf of a Mesmeric Hospital, feel themselves 
called on to explain the character and objects of 
the Association, and to remove some misconcep- 
tions which prevail, or might be likely to arise, on 
the subject. They wish it to be distinctly under- 
stood, that their object is not to maintain or to de- 
vise any scientific theory, but simply to extend the 
knowledge of certain important facts, and to faci- 
litate the beneficial application of that knowledge, 



22 Vital Magnetism. 



in the relief of suffering, and the cure of disease. 
With this view, they propose, not to occupy them- 
selves with a variety of experiments for the gratifi- 
cation of mere speculative curiosity, but to seek 
exclusively for practically useful results. 

"Without intending to disparage scientific in- 
vestigation, or to pronounce for, or against, any 
particular theory, they propose to confine their 
attention to what is practical and practically 
useful. 

"But, they would, at the same time, remind those 
who are eager after philosophical speculations, that 
in all departments of knowledge the ascertainment 
of facts has always come first in order, and that 
correct theories, to account for existing phenomena, 
have always (when such have been attained) ap- 
peared long after, and have been based upon those 
facts. The reversed procedure — that of seeking 
in the first instance for a theory, and disregarding, 
or misrepresenting all facts, that cannot be satis- 
factorily explained on such theory — this is pre- 
cisely that 'Anticipation of Nature' which 
Bacon protested against as the bane of true philos- 
ophy, and which it was the great object of his life 
to supersede, by the 'Interrogation of Nature.' 

" The Committee beg also to be understood, most 
clearly and candidly, that they do not seek to 
produce Mesmerism before the public as an agent 
capable of curing all diseases, or by any means wish 
it to usurp the place of the medical man; but simply 
put it forward as an individual remedy, capable of 



Status of the Practice in Great Britain. 23 

controlling and exercising a powerful and beneficial 
influence over a vast number of ailments; and more 
especially those called nervous and chronic affec- 
tions, which medical men have at all times acknow- 
ledged as little benefitted by the mere administration 
of drugs. 

"The Committee feel it of vital importance to 
their own character, to the people, and to the cause 
of Mesmerism itself, to disclaim any connection or 
co-operation with those who receive or practice 
Mesmerism, as derived from supernatural agency, or 
miracle-working power, independent of the laws of 
creation; but, on the contrary, would more humbly 
and gratefully acknowledge it as an additional 
means granted by the Almighty to man, to make 
him more dependent on Him, and more useful to 
his fellow-man ; and believe its phenomena to be 
solely the result of the vital force, conveyed by the 
operator to the more delicate and susceptible ner- 
vous organization of the person mesmerized ; just 
as light, or heat, or sound, &c, variously affect the 
animal or organic tissues they come in contact 
with. 

" Lastly, the Committee would suggest to the 
public, and in particular to the medical men of this 
city, that, when the existence of a real and im- 
portant agent has been established by facts which 
it is vain to attempt denying, and when great and 
increasing public attention has been drawn to these 
facts, it is most important to the well-being of 
society that such an agent should not be left in the 



24 Vital Magjzetism. 

hands of the ignorant and thoughtless, or of designing or 
ill-disposed persons; but that means should be taken 
for affording all candid persons an opportunity of 
fair investigation ; so that truth may be distin- 
guished from falsehood, and a beneficial from a 
noxious or dangerous application of the powers 
which Providence has placed within our reach. 
" By Order. 

"J. MacDonnell, 

"Hon. Secretary" 

The grand results obtained in this hospital would 
be exceedingly interesting as related in their pub- 
lished reports, but space will not allow even a 
synopsis of them here. The same is true of the 
reports published at the various annual meetings 
of each of the other institutions named. They 
teem with interesting and startling records of 
cases ; the meetings themselves were always of 
marked interest, and in numbers full to overflow- 
ing, hundreds at times being unable to gain admit- 
tance. 

Statements enough, I trust, are here submitted to 
show the strong position this science has assumed 
in the British Islands ; and in these entire reports 
we find neither rhapsody, cant, nor overstatement, 
but a judicial calmness, weighing carefully the 
aggregation of facts by men thoroughly competent 
to pass a solid judgment upon them. 

Dr. Elliottson, in presenting the sixth annual 
report at a meeting presided over by the Earl of 
Dunraven, said: 



Status vf the Practice in Great Britain. 25 

" It may cure as well as any other remedy, and, 
what is very important, without pain or discomfort; 
it may cure when every other remedy fails; it may, 
without pain or discomfort, lessen disease which it 
does not cure; and it may prevent and lessen suffer- 
ing when it does not lessen disease. 

''When we possess established means of curing 
or alleviating disease or lessening distress, and 
above all, in cases over which they exert their bene- 
ficial operation without suffering or mischief, and 
in cases in which they cure better than Mesmerism, 
they ought to be employed as the profession at 
large employs them, and as we, who are medical 
men do, in common with our brethren, employ them 
in our private practice; though we give not a particle 
of any drug in the Infirmary, for patients enter on 
the understanding that they are to be treated with 
Mesmerism only, and we take no cases in which 
medicines are likely to be required ; our object is 
to supply to the poor that which is denied them in 
other hospitals and dispensaries, and, if we em- 
ployed anything but Mesmerism, our cures would 
be ascribed by the profession to the medicines and 
not in any degree to the Mesmerism. 

" In ordinary practice, if at the same time Mes- 
merism also is employed, all established means will 
tell the more; they will require to be used with 
less force, the cure will be speedier and pleasanter, 
and the recovery both from the disease and from 
the debility left by it, and very many ordinary 
measures, be much accelerated. 



26 Vital Magnetism. 

" The advantage of Mesmerism during convales- 
cence from any disease and after any treatment, is 
also very great. It often serves all the purpose of 
change of air and scene, and is a blessed substitute 
to those whose means are too limited for that 
advantage. Wonderful as the fact may appear, 
persons very susceptible of mesmeric influence, if 
from confinement or other debilitating causes they 
become languid, pale and uncomfortable, lose their 
appetite, and are altogether in a state for which 
a change of air and relaxation from labor are an 
almost certain remedy, find mesmerization a far 
more potent means." 

Is any better authority needed than this great 
physiologist, and one of the first physicians in the 
city of London? 

See how carefully he guards all the interests of 
the profession he adorned, while stating such sub- 
stantial facts as came under his observation during 
the many years he occupied in the investigation of 
Mesmerism. 

Equally significant is the statement of that emi- 
nent representative of the Homoeopathic School, 
Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, of London, in which he 
declares: "We have no certain knowledge of the 
limit of Mesmerism as a curative agent, nor of the 
conditions which should exclude cases from this 
treatment." This is certainly a very near approach 
to Dr. Mesmer's universal, remedy. 

And a long stride is assuredly made in the recog- 
nized standing of magnetic practice, when that 



Status of tlie Practice on the Continent. 27 

greatest of living phyisologists, Dr. Wm. B. Carpen- 
ter, of England, can say, without provoking com- 
ment or contradiction, that this force, when applied 
with skill " will take rank as one of the most potent 
methods of treatment which the physician has at his com- 
mand"* 



IIL 



STATUS OF THE PRACTICE ON THE CONTINENT 

HISTORY OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. 

In France the practice has been recognized by 
the great majority of its physicians, and, previous 
to the discovery of ether and chloroform, was ex- 

* It is greatly to be regretted, however, that this valuable 
testimony of Dr. Carpenter's should be to some extent neutral- 
ized by his recent attempt in a popular magazine to excite ridi- 
cule over the mistakes of Dr. Mesmer, passing by the immense 
good he accomplished in the very line commended above, 
during his long and useful life. 

What writer or discoverer in any department of science is 
exempt from 4he follies of immature judgment ? Is it fair, 
then, to represent Mesmer as holding to opinions and prac- 
tices which he revised and abandoned long years before his 
death ? 

Why draw imaginery lines, too, in regard to Mesmerism, and 
Hypnotism, where they do not exist, if the desire is sincere to 
see this practice extended? 



28 Vital Magnetism. 

tensively employed as -an anesthetic in capital cases 
of surgery in Paris hospitals. 

As early as 1834 an organized Magnetic Hospital 
was opened by the Marquis de Guibert, a French 
nobleman,upon his estate at Fontchateau in the Com- 
mune of Tarascon, and during the six years which 
this benevolent gentleman gave to the work, 3,315 
cases were treated for severe forms of disease which 
had mainly been pronounced incurable. Dr. Char- 
pignon, member of the Medical Faculty of Paris, 
in his work entitled " Phisiologie Medicine et 
Mataphysique du Magnetisme," in speaking of the 
results obtained by the Marquis in this hospital, 
says: 

"Out of 3,315 patients admitted, 1,948 were dis- 
charged cured, and 375 were partially relieved, and 
504 were impassive. Of those admitted 2,121 were 
females, and 1,194 were males; amongst other cases 
treated 14 were for contracted limbs, of which seven 
were perfectly cured, and others relieved" — (p. 274 
of the above named work). 

I pass by the thousands of cases treated by Dr. 
Mesmer, and by his coadjutor, Dr. D'Eslon, as they 
are matters of permanent history, and challenged 
at the time the attention of all Christendom, pro- 
voking the appointment of Royal and Scientific 
commissions for the investigation of tfieir merits, 
and an offer of a large sum by the French Govern- 
ment to Mesmer to disclose the secret of his won- 
derful power over disease, of which he claimed to 
be the sole discoverer. 



Status of the Practice on the Continent. 29 

The world has been largely benefitted by Dr. 
Mesmer's researches in magnetism; and humanity 
will remain his debtor therefor to the end of time, 
and can well afford to forgive the folly of such ex- 
clusive claims as he set up respecting the discovery 
itself. The science also was rescued by his efforts 
from the domain of the so-called supernatural, and 
placed upon something like a scientific basis. Like 
all students and experimenters treading in new and 
unknown paths, Mesmer made mistakes; he sur- 
rounded the practice with a vast paraphernalia 
which did not belong to it, and made claims which 
could not be adequately supported; but these were 
of minor importance and were abandoned by this 
grand student when he became convinced of their 
inutility; (and that is the strongest expression 
which can be fairly used in regard to them). The 
magnetized rods and the baquet were abandoned 
and the more natural methods of his coadjutor, Dr. 
D'Eslon, took their place. 

These changes, however, did not affect the main 
question of cure ; suffering humanity was relieved 
of pain and distress, while the savans quarreled 
over methods. 

The opposition to magnetism at this era, while 
bitter in many quarters, only passed through the 
same stages which it assumed toward Harvey on 
Circulation, Jenner on Vaccination, and the dis- 
covery and use of Peruvian Bark ; and like those 
discoveries, magnetism just as completely gained 
its victory ; until to-day the apparently arrogant 



30 Vital Magnetism. 

claim of Mesmer, that " There is but one health, one 
disease, and one remedy" has far more of truth than 
fiction in it. 

Colquhoun, in referring to the antiquity of vital 
magnetism, says : 

"In 1666, or more than a century prior to Mes- 
mer, Valentine Greatrakes, an Irish gentleman, 
appeared in England, who posessed a power and 
wielded an influence quite equal to Mesmer. In 
the published accounts, Dr. George Rust, Lord 
Bishop of Derry, Ireland, says of the cures per- 
formed by him: 'I was three weeks together with 
him at my Lord Conway's, and saw him, I think, 
lay his hands upon a thousand persons ; and really 
there is something in it more than ordinary ; but 
I am convinced it is not miraculous. I have seen 
pains strangely fly before his hands, till he hath 
chased them out of the body — dimness of the eye 
cleared, and deafness cured by his touch ; twenty 
persons, at several times, in fits of the falling sick- 
ness, were in two or three minutes brought to them- 
selves, so as to tell where the pain was ; and then 
he hath pursued it, till he hath drawn it out of the 
extreme part ; running sores of the king's evil dried 
up, and kernels brought to a suppuration by his 
hand ; grievous sores of many months date healed 
in a few days. Obstructions and stoppages re- 
moved, cancerous knots in the breast dissolved, &c.' 
'But yet,' continues the Bishop, 'I have many 
reasons to persuade me that nothing of all this is 
miraculous ;' and he then proceeds to state his 



Status of the Practice on the Continent. 3 1 

reasons. Joseph Glanville, the author, also pub- 
lished an endorsement of Greatrakes, and gave 
many interesting facts in detail of his cures, and 
also quoted several ' sagacious and wary persons 
of the Royal Society, and other learned and judi- 
cious men whom we may suppose as unlikely to 
be deceived by a contrived imposture as any others 
whatsoever.' " 

It provokes a smile at this late day to see this 
balancing of probabilities of miraculous cure ; but 
these footprints in the past are interesting and con- 
vincing, nevertheless. 

In one of the volumes of the German Archives of 
Animal Magnetism (Archiv fur Thierischen Magni- 
tismus), an account is given of John Joseph Gass- 
ner, born in 1727, at Bratz, in Suabia, who created 
a great sensation by his magnetic cures, especially 
of spasmodic and epileptical complaints. In the 
same work (Vol. I., No. 3) is published an account 
of a Magnetic Physician by the name of Richter, in 
181 7, whose cures were considered very wonderful, 
and were effected by magnetic manipulation. He 
was visited, it is said, by multitudes, "from minis- 
ters of state and noblemen down to the lowest beg- 
gars, and he cured them all, indiscriminately and 
gratuitously." The Government had his conduct 
investigated, and granted him protection. 

In 1492, Petrus Pomponatius, Professor of Philo- 
sophy at Padua, assumes it as a fact generally 
acknowledged, that there are men endowed with 
the faculty of curing certain diseases by means of 



32 Vital Magnetism. 

an effluence or emanation which they direct towards 
the patient. He says " when those who are endowed 
with this faculty, operate by employing the force 
of the imagination and the will, this force affects 
their blood and their spirits, which produce the 
intended effects, by means of an evaporation thrown 
outwards," and that it is by no means inconceivable 
that health may be communicated to a sick person 
by this force of the imagination, and the will so 
directed. He compares this susceptibility of health 
to the opposite susceptibility of the infection of 
disease. 

These views and practices, be it remembered, 
were put forth nearly 400 years ago, — the practice 
to-day remains identical, — the theories are not 
much improved. 

Van Helmont has occupied so prominent a place 
in historical records, that a brief reference to him 
will be acceptable. John Baptist Van Helmont 
was an eminent physician, who lived between 1577 
and 1644. He discovered the laudanum of Paracel- 
sus, the spirit of hartshorn, and the volatile salts ; 
and to him we owe the first knowledge of the elastic 
aeriform fluids, to which he gave the name of gas, 
which they still retain. 

Van Helmont wrote a remarkable treatise on 
the "Magnetic Cure of Wounds" in answer to two 
authors, who have written upon the same subject : 
Goclenius, a physical philosopher in high repute, 
and Father Robert, a Jesuit. 



Status of the Practice on the Continent. 33 

The first had maintained the reality of the cures 
effected by magnetic means, ascribing them to 
natural causes. The latter admits the cures, but 
ascribes them to the influence of the devil. Van 
Helmont wrote in order to put the practice upon 
a natural and scientific basis, deeming the defence 
of Goclenius feeble, and to prove, in opposition to 
Father Robert, that, there was nothing diabolical in 
magnetic treatment. Magnetism, he says, is a uni- 
versal agent ; there is nothing new in it but the 
name, and it is a paradox only to those who are 
disposed to ridicule everything, and who ascribe to 
the influence of Satan all those phenomena which 
they cannot explain. " Magnetism is that occult in- 
fluence which bodies exert over each other at a 
distance, whether by attraction or impulsion." The 
medium he designates " Magnale Magnum," and 
describes it as pervading all nature. Our modern 
theorists have not advanced much beyond this 
writer of 300 years ago. 

One of the grand practical uses this great and good 
man made of the magnetic cure, was its successful 
application to the sick with the plague which raged 
in Brussels. "Perceiving," he says, "that most of 
the physicians deserted the sick, I devoted myself 
to their service, and God preserved me from the 
contagion. All, when they saw me, seemed to be 
refreshed with hope and joy." 

This is part of the record of three hundred years 



34 Vital Magnetism. 

Perhaps I have given references enough to estab- 
lish the high antiquity of magnetic practice ; but 
if the reader would pursue this branch of the subject 
further, he will find himself abundantly gratified by 
a perusal of Colquhoun's Isis Revelata, published 
in Edinburgh in 1844, in which will be found an 
almost connected history, running back to the first 
century, — to which interesting work I am indebted 
for many references. That work, however, is some- 
what controversial in character, and answers objec-* 
tions as to the reality of magnetic phenomena. 
That necessity having passed away, the book has 
gone out of print ; but it is one of the very best on 
the subject in our language. 

It will be seen that this practice ante-dates that 
of medicine by many centuries, and has received 
the endorsement of eminent physicians in other 
ages, for it in no wise antagonizes, but harmojiizes 
with the intelligent practice of medicine, and 
reaches a great variety of diseases for which no 
other successful treatment is found. 






IV. 

THE EVIDENCE OF REASON AND COMMON SENSE. 

One of the objects in presenting the facts set 
forth in this treatise is to call the attention of phy- 
sicians in this country more definitely to a subject 
which has, within the past few years, occupied the 
attention of some of the Medical Conventions of 
several of our States, only to exhibit the almost to- 
tal lack of information at the command of the pro- 
fession, while strong curiosity has always been man- 
ifested by the profession in regard to these pro- 
cesses of nature whenever the matter has been 
brought forward. The practical results to be at- 
tained by magnetic treatment in epilepsy, hysteria, 
paralysis, fever and ague, and the whole range of 
neural disorders and functional derangement, are 
scarcely dreamed of by the ordinary practitioner. 

This ignorance does not arise from a low stand- 
ard of learning generally; but physicians in this 
country have considered magnetic phenomena a 
curious mental condition without practical utility in 
general therapeutics, and have been content to hold f 
vague and imperfect opinions. It is only when 
brought face to face with the researches of investi- 
gators abroad who have had the field almost to 
themselves, that they can understand the interest 



2,6 Vital Magnetism. 

which men like Dr.Wm. B. Carpenter and Dr. Brown 
Sequard express in their public utterances upon 
this subject. 

Physicians excuse themselves under the plea, as 
was said to me recently by a medical man, that 
"a man cannot be expected to know everything;" 
which is true enough, but, while the widest and 
deepest knowledge and most careful training 
would not be wasted, and would be as useful in 
this practice, as in surgery, a superficial acquaint- 
ance even with its facts and observation of its results 
will lead a practitioner possessing moderate ability 
in this direction, to relieve special patients from 
many a fearful experience which medication might 
be powerless to reach. 

Outside aid might then be called in to complete 
the cure in a case that proved too exhausting for the 
general practitioner to pursue. All this would be 
in the same line as the employment of experts in 
surgery where the skill of the attending physician 
is often unequal to the safe performance of some 
delicate operation, and properly gives way to more 
skillful hands. 

One reason for the lack of progress in the field 
of magnetic therapeutics in this country, lies in the 
fact that the art has often been degraded into a 
mere spectacle by itinerant lecturers, who seized 
upon the novel mental phenomena, so easily excited 
in a certain percentage of natural sensitives, and 
presented the buffoonery elicited from these ' hypno- 
tized ' automatons as proper illustrations of the 



The Evidence of Reason and Common Sense. 3 7 

real power of animal magnetism. The natural re- 
sult was to discourage and prevent investigation 
into its real merits. 

But, as we have recorded, this has not been the 
fate of this noble science abroad, at least not to the 
same extent. It had to struggle for a time, as we 
have seen, against hate, opposition, calumny and 
misrepresentation ; even the first report of the 
French Academy in 1784 was against it; still it 
advanced steadily, until the second investigation 
ordered by the French Royal Academy of Medi- 
cine, in 1825, when opposition was to a great ex- 
tent silenced. 

To this important commission let us now more 
fully advert. It was composed of the following 
eminent physicians : MM. Bourdois, Double, Fou- 
quier, Itard, Gueneau, de Mussy, Guersent, Leroux, 
Majendie, Marc, Thillaye and M. Husson. Six 
patient years of investigation were expended upon 
this subject, and a wide range of experiments insti- 
tuted, many of which were perhaps of little practi- 
cal value, covering clairvoyance, intuition, and 
interior prevision, culminating in a report, too 
long to be embodied here, of these interesting phe- 
nomena, but incorporating this practical conclusion, 
that, u Considered as a physiological phenomenon, or as a 
therapeutic agent, magnetism should be assigned a place 
in the list of medical knowledge." <> 

The report throughout is a candid, able, and clear 
statement of fact, and, after detailing some cases of 
cure, closes as follows: — "We do not ask of you a 



38 Vital Magnetism. 

blind assent to all which we have reported. We 
can conceive that a great number of these facts are 
so extraordinary, that you cannot yield to us your 
belief; — perhaps indeed we ourselves should have 
dared to refuse you our assent, if, having changed 
places, you should have announced to us this day, 
from this chair, these very facts which we had never 
seen, never observed, never studied, never pursued. 

"We ask only that you would judge us as we 
would judge you ; — that is to say — that you would 
feel thoroughly convinced that neither the love of 
the marvelous, nor the desire of celebrity, nor any 
personal interest, has influenced our labors. We 
have been animated by higher and worthier mo- 
tives ; by the love of science and by the desire to 
justify the hopes which the Academy had formed 
of our zeal and our devotedness." 

This report was signed unanimously, and re- 
deemed the Academy from the poltroonery which 
the report of 1784 carried upon its face. 

During the last century the best writers upon 
the subject have come from the ranks of the medi- 
cal profession, embracing men of high standing ; 
clergymen of repute, and thorough scientists have 
also contributed to its literature ; and yet how lit- 
tle is known in these United States of the capabili- 
ties of this grand force ! W T here are our writers ? 
Scarcely one worthy of the name has appeared : 
while hundreds of volumes of valuable works upon 
this subject have been poured forth in France, Ger- 
many and England. 



The Evidence of Reason and Common Sense. 39 

In 1854-5 more books were published in France 
on the subject of vital magnetism than upon any- 
other topic ; many of which, it is true, were of a 
highly speculative character, undertaking to ex- 
plain the inexplicable, but many were of rare value. 

It will not be my purpose to attempt to explain 
the origin or causation of this force ; the difficulty 
of such a task is too apparent, and is well set forth 
in the language of Dr. Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, 
when he says : 

" In the investigation of the powers which are 
concerned in the phenomena of living beings, we meet 
with difficulties incomparably greater than those 
that attend the discovery of the physical forces by 
which the parts of inanimate nature are actuated. 

"The elements of the inorganic world are few and 
simple ; the combinations they present are, in most 
cases, easily unravelled ; and the powers which 
actuate their motions, or affect their union and their 
changes, are reducible to a small number of general 
laws, of which the results may, for the most part, 
be anticipated and exactly determined by calcula- 
tion. What law, for instance, can be more simple 
than that of gravitation, to which all material 
bodies, whatever be their size, figure, or other 
properties, and whatever be their relative positions, 
are equally subjected ; and of which the observa- 
tions of modern astronomers have rendered it pro- 
bable that the influence extends to the remotest 
regions of space ? The most undeviating regularity 
is exhibited in the motions of those stupendous 



40 Vital Magnetism. 

planetary masses, which continually roll onwards 
in the orbits prescribed by this all-prevading force. 
Even the slightest perturbations occasioned by their 
mutual influence, are but the direct results of the 
same general law, and are necessarily restrained 
within certain limits, which they never can exceed, 
and by which the permanence of the system is 
effectually secured. All the terrestrial changes 
dependent on these motions partake of the same 
constancy. The same periodic order governs the 
succession of day and night, the rise and fall of the 
tides, and the return of the seasons ; which order, 
as far as we can perceive, is incapable of being dis- 
turbed by any existing cause. 

" Equally definite are the operations of the forces 
of cohesion, of elasticity, or of whatever other 
mechanical powers of attraction or repulsion there 
may be, which actuate at insensible distances the 
particles of matter." 

After observing that all these phenomena, to- 
gether with those of chemistry, light, heat, electri- 
city and magnetism, have been, in like manner, 
reduced to laws of sufficient simplicity to admit of 
the application of mathematical reasoning, and 
that to whatever department of physical science 
our researches have extended, we everywhere meet 
with the same regularity in the phenomena, the 
same simplicity of the laws, and the same uniform- 
ity of results, the author continues : 

" Far different is the aspect of living nature. The 
spectacle here offered to our view is every where 



The Evidejice of Reason and Common Sense. 41 

characterized by boundless variety, by inscrutable 
complexity, by perpetual mutation. Our attention 
is solicited to a vast multiplicity of objects, curious 
and intricate in their mechanism, exhibiting pecu- 
liar movements, actuated with new and unknown 
powers, and gifted with high and refined endow- 
ments. In place of the simple combinations of 
elements and the simple properties of mineral 
bodies, all organic structures, even the most minute, 
present exceedingly complicated arrangements, and 
a prolonged succession of phenomena, so varied 
and so anomalous, as to be utterly irreducible to 
the known laws which govern inanimate matter. 

" If we are to reason at all, we can reason only upon 
the principle that for every effect there must be a 
corresponding cause ; or in other words, that there 
is an established and invariable order of sequence 
among the changes which take place in the universe. 
But though it be granted that all the phenomena 
we behold are the effects of certain causes, it might 
still be alleged, as a bar to all further reasoning, 
that these causes are not only utterly unknown to 
us, but that their discovery is wholly beyond the 
reach of our faculties. 

" The argument is specious only because it is 
true in one particular sense, and that a very limited 
one. Those who urge it do not seem to be aware 
that its general application, in that very sense, 
would shake the foundation of every kind of knowl- 
edge, even that which we regard as built upon the 
most solid basis. 



42 Vital Magnetism. 

" Of causation, it is agreed that we know nothing : 
all that we do know is that one event succeeds an- 
other with undeviating constancy." 

This philosophy covers the demand for an expla- 
nation of the laws governing the phenomena of 
magnetism. 

There would be no more justice, however, in re- 
jecting the established effects of this force, than 
those of either of the forces here alluded to ; and 
realizing the utter futility of attempting to answer 
unreasonable demands, I pass by the sea of specu- 
lation launched upon by various writers, and con- 
fine myself to arraying some of the prominent facts 
in support of its claims bearing upon the welfare 
of the human race, and turn over to the common 
sense of the reader all objections in this direction, 
including the weaker ones, of diabolic agency, 
miraculous power, spirit mediumship, or any super- 
natural agency. 

Let us accept the fact that the Almighty Father 
has placed at our disposal a sanative force that will 
assuage pain and cure disease by a natural process 
that is a/ways safe, never injurious, and adapted to 
rescue many a weary and hopeless sufferer from 
the region of despair. 



THE RECEIVED HYPOTHESIS DR. ASHBURNER S THEORY 

OF POLARITIES BARTH's VIEWS : MESMERISM NOT 

MIRACLE. 

As a practical investigator and practitioner I may- 
be expected to have balanced the theories of others, 
and arrived at some philosophical conclusion bear- 
ing upon cause and effect. 

In order to state this clearly, I quote a brief 
extract from Dr. John Ashburner's "Animal Mag- 
netism," as setting forth in the most condensed 
form, what I deem to be a reasonable hypothesis, and 
which my own experience and observation go far 
to supplement and confirm. 

And yet, simple as this theory appears to read, 
it is by no means certain that all its points can be 
absolutely proved ; still, the facts and the theory are 
quite as susceptible of demonstration and proof, as 
those pertaining to Light, Heat, and Electricity, and 
in the absence of a^rthing more definite they may 
be accepted. If the arguments by which he arrives 
at his conclusions are not conclusive, they certainly 
are convincing. He says : 

" Man is a magnet. He has, like all other mag- 
nets, poles and equators. But, being a magnetic 



44 Vital Magnetism. 

machine of very complex structure, his magnetic 
apparatus is divided into many parts. The brain 
is the chief magnet, and the trunk and extremities 
are separate magnets, having intimate relations with 
the chief source of magnetism. We infer from these 
facts, what is the truth, that the normal currents 
take a normal course from the brain to the caudal 
extremities. Mr. Faraday and Signor Matteucci 
have already established, this fact in the gymnotus 
and in the torpedo. 

" Polarity belongs to magnets ; every part of the 
living body is a magnet, and every magnet is capa- 
ble of being submitted to a reversal of polarity. 

" Those who are conversant with the common in- 
strument called the galvanic battery, may easily 
convince themselves of the fact of the reversals of 
polarity, by uniting the extremities of the positive 
and negative wires from the two poles of a battery 
properly charged with the fluid, calculated to set 
in motion the electric current. At the moment of 
contact the fluid in the cells effervesces. The polar- 
ities of the current have been reversed. This fact 
of the reversal of polarity, applied in the case of the 
living body, explains the phenomenon of pain. 

" While the animated being proceeds in a direct 
train, his sensibilities are not the sources of con- 
scious feeling. They are to all intents quiescent. 
The polarities of the magnet are undisturbed. 
In all directions the ultimate organic molecules, 
constituting the organism, are undisturbed. This 
is sleep. The moment the relations of these mole- 



The Received Hypothesis. 45 

cules to each other are altered, the individual be- 
comes conscious of the change by an altered state 
of sensation. This is not necessarily a pain, or a 
person could never become awake from a condition 
of sleep without suffering pain. The conditions of 
sleep and wakefulness are striking examples of al- 
tered opposite polarities. The whole body being a 
congeries of magnetic molecules, must necessarily 
be subject to the laws regulating polarities. Any 
change in the relations of the poles of living animal 
molecules, must be productive of a change in the 
sensibilities of the part. Whether the change be 
the cause of pleasure or of pain, must depend upon 
the faculties of the individual. 

" Endowed with a nervous system, the animal is 
susceptible of sensations, without which, the idea 
of pleasure or pain becomes absurd. The inference, 
then, remains that pain is an extreme disturbance of 
the polarities of a part " (pp. 88, 97).* 

"*To illustrate the application of this principle I 
will give a typical case from the same author : 

" I lately had a case of a young lady aged thir- 
teen years, who had suffered for years from a suc- 

*Should any of my readers desire to investigate exhaust- 
ively the theory of magnetic polarities, they will find a thor- 
ough analysis of this physical phenomenon in. Baron Von 
Reichenbach's work, " Researches on Mag?ietism" translated from 
the German and edited by Dr. Wm. Gregory, Professor of 
Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, and one of the best 
writers on magnetic science. This work of Von Reichenbach's 
contains about five hundred octavo pages, and is the result of 
many years of careful experiment upon the human body, min- 
erals, crystals, &c, demonstrating the presence and range of 
magnetic and odyllic force over a very wide field in nature. 



46 Vital Magnetism. 

cession of strumous affections, of which the neck 
and left side of her face exhibited evidence. Mar- 
asmus with epigastric pain, aggravated by pressure 
upon the part ; rheumatic pains, first in one ankle 
then in the other, aggravated by the same descrip- 
tion of pains in both wrists, and in several spots in 
the course of the spine, threatened to wear out the 
poor sufferer with want of sleep ; hectic fever with 
rapid pulse, distressing thirst and perpetual desire 
for relief, kept the attendant on the alert six or 
seven times in the night. The remedies usual in 
such cases had all been had recourse to in vain. 
Months rolled on and the disease marched without 
a prospect of alleviation. Additional advice was 
obtained, but no bright hopes could be indulged in. 

" If the arthritic symptoms were those of strumous 
inflammation, why did not a serious disorganization 
take place ? There was abundance of pain in fibrous 
tissues, with slight increase of heat, and so much 
tenderness that the joints could not be handled. 
Month after month, pain, the extreme reversal of 
polarity, gave the local symptoms of premonition — 
the premonitory advanced guard of the enemy — 
inflammation ; the rest of the troop of symptoms 
had not yet joined their comrades, pain and slightly 
increased heat. 

" That pain is dependent on a reversal of polarity, 
that the pain in analogous conditions of gout and 
scrofula is subdued by measures which restore the 
healthy polarities of organs, is obvious, from the 
fact that it is necessary only to mesmerize the 



The Received Hypothesis. 47 

pained parts for a sufficient time downwards, in order 
to overcome the suffering. 

u The process of cure consists in establishing the 
healthy direct current in place of the inverse, or 
lethal, current. 

" The young lady alluded to was submitted to 
downward passes for an hour at a time twice a day 
during three months, and she was cured ; restored 
by God's blessing of Mesmerism to such health as 
to be able to enjoy life with all the exhilarating influ- 
ences and impulses of youth. She was a pattern of 
good health and spirits.* 

In spite of the irritability of the doctor (for which 
he doubtless had good reasons) he makes a noble 
and convincing claim for the healing effects of Vital 
Magnetism, of which he was a worthy champion. 
In the preface of his extensive work he says: " We 
propose to show that Animal Magnetism is a force 
which can alleviate the most agonizing suffering ; 
which can cure painful cancers and other malig- 
nant diseases; which, without endangering life, can 
render the patient insensible to pain under the sur- 
geon's knife, and in the throes of a painful labor; 
which can raise up from the deep insensibility of 
the last stage of typhus fever a dying patient; and 
which can do far more than all this, viz: cure by its 
vital and healing efficacy the frightful suffering 

* That Dr. John Ashburner is competent authority none will 
question, and his work on magnetism is as comprehensive as 
any, especially in its application to disease. It is published by 
H. Bailliere, 219 Regent Street, London, and was issued in 1867. 



48 Vital Magnetism. 

arising from an attack of gout in the peritoneal 
membrane of the abdomen, for which, I was told 
that fourteen of the most eminent physicians and 
surgeons had failed to suggest any means of relief. 
May we not assert, then, that through the agency of 
this force, God has enabled man to wield a power al- 
most divine!" The author makes good these pledges. 

Many years of patient study and experiment were 
expended upon his investigations by the eminent 
scientist and scholar, Von Reichenbach, who was 
most thoroughly furnished, in every way, for such a 
work. 

I am aware that some men have flippantly declared 
that in all this painstaking research this grand man 
is self-deceived and deceiving : but, few of his critics 
have yet attained the high position occupied by 
Von Reichenbach, in Chemistry, Geology, Mineral- 
ogy and the domain of Physics: nor can they 
displace him from public estimation by their shallow 
doubting: his " Researches " — already adverted 
to — will live long after the memory of these jealous 
parasites shall have perished. 

So thoroughly has he done his work that he is a 
bold man who will lightly undertake to traverse the 
same path. 

Mr. G. Barth, an eminent magnetic practitioner in 
London, also a vigorous writer on magnetic science, 
advances these views, in his very interesting and 
suggestive little volume, "Mesmerism not Miracle," 
as the result of his own study and wide experience. 

" Before we endeavor," he says, " to show how the 



The Received Hypothesis. 49 

mesmeric agent cures disease, we may perhaps be 
allowed to speculate on what constitutes health and 
what disease, and what the mesmeric influence is. 

"A man is in full health when every organ in his 
body is capable of duly performing its assigned use ; 
doing neither too much work nor too little work : 
but just fairly and equally sharing its own task in 
the general labor required from the commonwealth 
of organs, and doing this also at the proper moment, 
working when its proper turn comes ; each organ 
being sound and perfect in its structure and every 
vessel, fibre, tissue and atom, perfectly and pro- 
perly constituted. Disease is just the reverse of 
this picture : we have organs either imperfect in 
structure and unable to perform their functions in 
consequence of such imperfection, or we have 
them, although not structurally altered, incapable 
or refusing to do their fair share of the general 
labor, or doing too much, and doing it at wrong 
times, and thus disturbing the general harmony of 
the commonweal. Structural disease, unless con- 
genital or from some accident, rarely exists except- 
ing as the consequence of a previous functional 
derangement. A question may arise here — What 
causes functional derangement? 

" Functional derangement is a disturbance of the 

power, force, or agency which acts upon organs 

■ and makes them work. To understand the subject 

I clearly we must endeavor to view the active agency 

or moving power as an entity, separate and distinct 

from the passive recipient or organism to be acted 



50 Vital Mag7tetism. 

on. We shall not obtain much help by studying the 
subject in the method which authority ordains in 
medical schools. Mesmerism, or some analogous 
science, must be admitted and used as instruments 
of investigation before either physiologists or pa- 
thologists will be able to obtain a masterly view 
of a human being as a whole, or comprehend fully 
the laws on which depend his health and disease. 
Supposing that an anatomist-physiologist, a mi- 
croscopist-physiologist, and a chemist-physiologist 
were determined by the aid of their general and 
particular knowledge to analyze a man thoroughly 
and make plain the whole matter. They catch a 
live man, weighing 150 pounds we may say, and 
as a preliminary step in their investigation they give 
him a dose of prussic acid, or take some other means 
of suspending the action of his heart; the anato- 
mist then does his work, and shows bones, blood 
vessels, nerves, membranes, muscles, tendons, car- 
tilages, fat, and a membrane investing the whole, 
namely, skin. He shows heart, lungs, stomach, 
liver, and various and numerous other organs 
in the body, the use or functions of each, and 
the healthy character of its structure he determines 
as a physiologist and pathologist. He shows a brain, 
spinal chord and system of nerves branching off 
in every direction, going from the brain as an 
imaginary centre to every one of these organs, to 
the extremities, and the whole skin as a circumfer- 
ence. The microscopist shows that these nerves, 
even the most minute, are tubes, and a rational in- 



The Received Hypothesis. 5 1 

ference follows that being tubes they were intended 
to contain and convey; his instrument discovers the 
mechanical structure of the blood and other fluids 
in the system and the radical molecules, or germs 
from which all organs and tissues are developed. 
The chemist takes up the analysis where these leave 
it and reduces the whole to separate portions or 
component elementary principles, called hydrogen, 
oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, 
and small parts of sundry other elementary 
principles which need not be here specified, but 
which altogether weigh 150 pounds; — the exact 
weight of each, the proportions in which one com- 
bines with another, and the character of every re- 
sultant combination are next duly eliminated, 
arranged, and tabulated. 

"Weary and tedious — mentally exhausting and 
sensationally disgusting — has the task of these deep 
searching physiologists been; the reward of their 
labors remains to them; they have analyzed a 
man ! — they now know all about him ! — and their 
knowledge will be set forth for the good of the 
human race, for this, when combined with the 
learned contributions of fellow-laborers, morbid 
anatomists, pathologists, therapeutists, nosolo- 
gists, pharmaceutists, and sundry other ists, must 
furnish such a battery of medical science to 
bear upon the subjects of human health and disease 
— of the composition of a man and his re-com- 
position — of the wearing out and the renewal of his 
tissues and organs — of the nature of healthy struc- 



52 Vital Magnetism. 

ture and of unhealthy structure — that disease will 
no longer have a chance of establishing itself in 
the system. If it attempts to invade, instantly the 
physician's battery is set into action and the disease 
annihilated. Is this the fact ? have the researches 
of our physiologists enabled medical sciolists to es- 
tablish a perfect system of healing by which they 
can comprehend and absolutely master disease? Ex- 
perience cries, No ! — we are very little in advance 
of the physicians of two thousand years ago in this 
respect. Is our supposed scientific investigation 
then useless? Not so !— it may be worth the labor 
spent, it is well as far as it goes, but it is not all, 
it is not enough; our physiologists have been ana- 
lyzing a dead body — not a living man! 

" The nerves which the microscope show as tubes 
meant to contain and convey something, certainly 
lost the fluid which must have circulated through 
their ramifications when the anatomist stopped the 
action of the heart; for he saw it not when he di- 
vided a nerve — the microscope could not detect it ; 
there was no trace of it discovered by the chemist ; 
there was no evidence of its presence; it had there- 
fore already escaped if it ever were there. Although 
the physiologist has not seen this power or fluid, he 
rationally infers its existence as derived from the 
brain, and he also knows that its operative energy 
or force is antecedent and necessary to the functional 
activity of an organ, for if the nerves which convey 
it from the living brain are divided that organ no 
longer performs its function. 



The Received Hypothesis. 53 

"It signifies not by what name we call this force ; 
we are not sure that it is either electricity or mag- 
netism — but nervous force or nervous fluid, the 
common names by which it is designated, are not 
misnomers, and we may, therefore, retain them when 
alluding to it. 

" As the integrity of structure depends on function 
and the integrity of function depends on the nervous 
fluid, we may readily believe that the power which 
can control this nervous fluid in an individual is a 
power competent to regulate his disturbed func- 
tional action and also to modify structural derange- 
ment to a greater or lesser extent. 

"It therefore follows that this power, properly 
directed, is an agent by which diseases may be 
cured. 

" To operate on the nervous force of another by our 
own nervous force is to exercise the mesmeric art. 

"The nervous force appertains to a living man ; it 
is not to be found existing in a dead body ; if a 
philosopher would understand either its origin, 
nature or laws, he must study it where it is, instead 
of seeking to observe it where it is not. 

" This study leads us directly away from an inves- 
tigation of the gross ponderable material elements 
of the body, although organized, to a consideration 
of the imponderable forces which organized it, and 
which, operating upon or through the nervous fluid, 
maintain and conserve it as an individual organic 
existence. 

"This study is the science of mesmerism." 



54 Vital Magnetism. 

And then, after speculating on received theories, 
he adds : 

"Having as briefly as possible endeavored to 
show how mesmerism cures disease, we may inquire 
if our readers can see anything approaching to 
miracle in a mesmeric cure ? Instead of being 
supernatural, cures by mesmerism are particularly 
and peculiarly natural, certainly as much or more 
so than cures effected by the dynamic power which 
is found existing in medicinal drugs. 

" There is a natural law existing that all dissimilar 
electrical states tend to become similar states, if the 
atoms of matter which are in opposite conditions 
be sufficiently approximated. The plus or positive 
state, and the minus or negative state mutually 
attract until plus and minus cease to exist and 
equilibrium is established. We know not why this 
is — we only know that it is. The analogy will 
apply to two human organisms, one of whom is in 
a state of health, the other suffering from disease ; 
if they are brought into certain relations to each 
other, the one who is healthy or in the positive 
state will transmit his state to the one who is nega- 
tive or unhealthy until equilibrium is established. 

" There is a natural law relating to the magnetic 
forces of steel magnets. If we take a weak or ex- 
hausted magnet and make passes over it in one 
direction with a strong magnet, either by drawing 
it in contact, or at a short distance, the strong 
magnet imparts some of its force to the weak one, 
and thereby renovates or strengthens it until equili- 



The Received Hypothesis. 55 

brium is established, or the weak magnet has re- 
ceived as strong a charge as its material ferrugi- 
nous atoms are capable of retaining. Again, the 
analogy will obtain as relates to certain mesmeric 
operations — the healthy man is the strong magnet, 
the sick man the weak one ; passes in one direction 
cause special effects — passes reversed or made in 
the opposite direction dissipate these effects. Man 
has also his polar relations — one hand and half 
being positive, the other hand and half being nega- 
tive ; corresponding to the north and south poles of 
a horse-shoe magnet. 

" We see a similar law relating to the imponder- 
able fluid or force called heat. We do not know 
what heat is ; we do not know that it is until we 
have some experience of its effects ; but we do 
know that if two bodies possessing different in- 
crements of heat approach each other, the one 
which is plus gives off its heat to that which is 
minus, until equilibrium is obtained. Here again the 
analogy of the healthy man and sick man, and the 
return to equilibrium or mesmeric cure may be 
urged. 

" We do not know what electricity is ; we do not 
know what magnetism is ; we do not know what 
heat is ; we do not know what the vital influence of 
a living body is. We judge alone of the existence 
of these influences, fluids, or forces by their effects ; 
truly ! under certain circumstances they become 
visible — and how visible ? — as luminous emanations, 
aurae, flames or light. The luminosity of electricity, 



56 Vital Magnetism. 

heat, and magnetism are not disputed by philoso- 
phers ; the luminous appearance of the life-power 
or influence is as easily shown if we use the neces- 
sary instruments. 

" The law of the tendency to states of equilibrium 
being established as a natural law affecting the three 
first-named agencies, why should the corresponding 
law of. a tendency to equilibrium under the neces- 
sary conditions in respect to the fourth or vital-force 
agency be considered unnatural? 

" We may assume that there is some kind of im- 
ponderable fluid generated in every living system, 
resembling the electric or magnetic fluids, causing 
heat — being perceptible as light, conductible by 
the nerves, and existing, associated with every 
living atom of the living body ; the material atoms 
only having life and maintaining their organic state 
during this association." 

These observations are based largely on Reichen- 
bach's discoveries; and where the results of his 
researches are not admitted they may appear to 
have little force, but to the practical magnetist the 
conclusions are sound and the premises valid. 
They are submitted here as a fair sample of the 
direction inquiry had taken at that period in the 
minds of writers who philosophized on physical and 
mental phenomena in magnetic science. If these 
suggestions do not settle the questions presented, 
they at least leave them in no worse plight than the 
pretentious writers of to-day leave the various 
obscure phenomena of which they treat in their 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 5 7 

mental physiologies, and which generally obtain 
popular credence. They suffer nothing by compar- 
ison. 



VI. 



THE PRINCIPAL THERAPEUTICAL EFFECTS — EVIDENCE 
OF EMINENT PRACTITIONERS. 

Colquhoun describes the leading therapeutical 
effects as follows; 

First: A general excitement and strengthening 
of the vital functions, without any considerable 
stimulus, in the nervous, muscular, vascular, and 
digestive systems. 

Persons who could not be strengthened by 
corroborant medicines of any kind, have been re- 
stored to health, from a state of great debility, in a 
short time, by means of the magnetic treatment. 

The application of this remedy quickens the pulse, 
produces an increased degree of warmth, greater 
sensitive power, and mental cheerfulness. 

The appetite and the digestion are increased; the 
bowels, which had previously been kept open by 
artificial means, now become regular; and the 
patient acquires a relish for such kinds of food as 
are good for him, and an aversion for such as are 



58 Vital Magnetis77i. 

injurious. Animal magnetism also promotes all 
the other secretions. In those constitutional com- 
plaints which are peculiar to the female sex, it is the 
most certain, the most powerful, and most efficacious 
remedy hitherto discovered. 

The treatment seems to operate principally upon 
the great concatenation of sympathetic nerves 
(the plexus Solaris) and by means of their various 
ramifications, to communicate its influence to the 
rest of the system. 

Second: It affords a gentle stimulus, pervading 
generally the whole surface of the body, by which 
all disturbed harmony and diseased local action 
are removed, and the equilibrium again restored. 

In this way animal magnetism soothes the most 
violent action of the nervous system, the tumult of 
the muscles, and the over-exertion of the vital func- 
tions in the whole economy. 

Third: It draws off the increased vital action 
from the diseased parts, and conducts it to others. 

By this means a two-fold advantage is gained: in 
the first place, the excited action, or irritation, is 
carried away from the internal and more noble 
organs to those whose violent action is attended 
with less injury to the system; and in the second 
place, the salutary vital action is strengthened and 
increased in particular debilitated organs. The 
consequences of the magnetic treatment, therefore, 
are soothing and strengthening. 

In most instances, the agitation produced by the 
diseased organization is gradually allayed, until, 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 59 

at length, a perfect recovery is effected; because 
animal magnetism occasions a diminution and total 
removal of the existing cause of the morbid action 
of the nervous system. 

Dr. Ashburner says: "Perhaps none of the dis- 
eases that have not wholly disorganized or destroyed 
important structures is able to resist the influence 
of repetitions of the powerfully toning force of 
mesmerism. 

" It appears to re-establish the original order of 
Nature: and obliges parts which have not been too 
much altered in structure, to resume their healthy 
forms and relations. It normalises abnormalized 
organs. It replaces disease by health. This lan- 
guage is very deliberately, very earnestly used, 
from a thorough conviction of its truth, and is not 
the least too strong, considering the facts on which 
I rely." 

Chauncy Hare Townshend says of this force : 
" To serve either as a calmant or stimulant, accord- 
ing to the exigencies of the complaint which it is 
called in to combat, followed as it is in neither 
mode of its influence by heaviness or exhaustion, 
would alone give it the highest rank as a remedy, 
if we regard it as a remedy merely. In this 
point of view, how valuable appear its offices, how 
unmatched by those of any substance in the Mate- 
ria Medica! Again: — the direct correspondence of 
mesmerism with the nervous system, gives it a 
marked superiority over all sudh grosser agents as 
must reach that delicate framework of life by a cir- 



60 Vital Magnetism. 

cuitous route. Of all remedies, this alone pours 
its benefits direct upon the very springs of sensation; 
and thus, in cases of deafness and blindness, which 
depend on nervous weakness (and I believe there 
are more such affections referable to this cause than 
is generally suspected), we possess a subtle means 
of acting efficiently upon that fountain-head of 
the calamity, to which neither drug nor couching- 
needle can find its way." 

Dr. Esdaile, already quoted, in his work entitled 
" Mesmerism in India," after detailing hundreds of 
remarkable cases in his practice, in hospital, sums 
up his conclusions of the general effects, as follows : 

"I conclude that mesmerism is a natural power 
of the human body. 

" That it affects directly the nervous and muscu- 
lar systems. 

" That in the mesmeric trance the most severe 
and protracted surgical operations can be performed, 
without the patients being sensible of pain. 

" That spasms and nervous pains often disappear 
before the mesmeric trance. 

" That it gives us a complete command of the 
muscular system, and is therefore of great service 
in restoring contracted limbs. 

" That its administration often acts as a useful 
stimulant in functional debility of the nerves. 

" That as sleep, in the absense of all pain, is the 
best condition of the system for subduing inflam- 
mation, the trance will probably be found to be a 
powerful remedy in local inflammations." 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 6 1 

Dr. Esdaile's experiments were directed mainly 
to painless surgery, although he reports the relief 
and cure of a large number of nervous diseases and 
inflammatory conditions. 

No physiologist living stands higher than Dr. 
Wm. B. Carpenter, of England, whose writings 
upon physiology and kindred science command 
universal respect, and are adopted as the text-books 
in the first medical schools in the world. Dr. Car- 
penter's attention seems to have been directed more 
specifically to Mr. Braid's so-called Hypnotic 
Methods, and in his recent work entitled " Prin- 
ciples of Mental Physiology " {Reprint by D. Apple- 
ton 6° Co., N. Y., 1875), page 609, says : 

" There is nothing in the least degree incredible, 
therefore, in the phenomena which Mr. Braid re- 
corded, many of which the writer himself witnessed. 

" The pulsations of the heart and the respiratory 
movements may be accelerated or retarded; and 
various secretions may be altered both in quantity, 
and quality, of which the following is a striking ex- 
ample. 

"a — A lady, who was leaving off nursing from 
defect of milk, the baby being thirteen months old, 
was hypnotized by Mr. Braid, and whilst she was 
in this state he made passes over her right breast to 
call her attention to it. 

" In a few moments her gestures showed that the 
baby was sucking, and in two minutes the breast was 
distended with milk, at which, when subsequently 
awakened, she expressed the greatest surprise. 



62 Vital Magnetism. 



"The flow of milk from that side continued most 
abundant: and, in order to restore symmetry to her 
figure, Mr. Braid subsequently produced the same 
change in the other; after which she had a copious 
supply of milk for nine months. 

"The removal of morbid deposits under the same 
influence, seems quite as well attested, and the 
Physiologist who holds with the illustrious Mueller, 
that ' an idea that a structural defect will certainly 
be removed by a certain act, increases the organic 
action in the part,' will see no inherent impossibility 
in the following statement: 

" b — A female relative of Mr. Braid was the sub- 
ject of a severe rheumatic fever, during the course 
of which the left eye became seriously implicated, so 
that when the inflammatory action had passed away, 
there was an opacity over more than one half the 
cornea, which not only prevented distinct vision, 
but occasioned an annoying disfigurement. 

" Having placed herself under Mr. Braid's hypno- 
tic treatment for the relief of violent pain in her arm 
and shoulder, she found, to the surprise alike of 
herself and Mr. B., that her sight began to improve 
very perceptibly. 

" The operation was therefore continued daily, 
and in a short time the cornea became so transpar- 
ent that close inspection was required to discover 
any remains of the opacity." (Neurhyfinology,p. 175.) 

And he further declares: 

" The writer has known other cases, in which 
secretions that had been morbidly suspended, have 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 63 

been re-induced by this process; and is satisfied that, 
if applied with skill and discrimination, it would take 
rank as one of the most potent methods of treatment which 
the physician has at his command. 

Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, Member of the Royal 
College of Surgeons, England, and one of the first 
Homoeopathic Physicians of London, says in his 
brilliant and advanced work, " The Human Body 
and its Connection with Man," pp. 368-369: 

" Mesmerism emphatically gives new or other life 
to those who need it; and it does this by the mere 
form and attitude which the agent and patient as- 
sume relatively to each other. 

" The human world is full of powers in a state of 
balance and indifference. Change the posture of 
anything therein and the whole has to readjust itself 
to a new balance; a rush of forces takes place and 
currents pass to and fro until the equilibrium is re- 
covered. The moral and the physical are both under 
this statical law. 

" We have no certain knowledge of the limits of 
Mesmerism as a curative agent, nor of the conditions 
which should exclude cases from this treatment. 
In functional disorders of the nervous system it is 
especially indicated, and as a number of diseases, 
even seemingly organic, spring from this root, it 
appears that it has a large field of application here. 
Hysteria, Epilepsy, Catalespy, and those other mala- 
dies in which the visceral motions predominate over 
the rhythmical or rational motions of the lungs, 
come very markedly under its benefits. But it is 



64 Vital Magnetism. 

not in our power to lay down any rule for the dis- 
tribution to it of cases generally; and therefore we 
wait upon experiment, which shows that the utilities 
to be derived from its employment are very exten- 
sive. 

" We had almost forgotten to place to the credit 
of Mesmerism its introduction of a painless surgery, 
which is among the most brilliant discoveries of the 
age. The doctors were totally incredulous of this 
matter, until Ether and Chloroform came and did 
the same thing in a grosser shape. 

" If there were shame in the world, they must have 
felt it, when they found how easy their impossibili- 
ties of a fortnight before had become. They doubted 
the testimony of honest men, where Mesmerism was 
concerned; they accepted the same facts when Chlo- 
roform produced them." 

Not to cumulate authority and evidence, but 
rather to show the remarkably wide range of appli- 
cation, the celebrated Dr. John Elliottson gives 
this summary of cases of magnetic cure coming 
under his observation for a period of ten years: 

1843. — Five cases of insanity. 
Eight cases of St. Vitus's dance. 
Six cases of palsy of sensation or motion. 
Seven cures of epileptic and other fits. 
Rapid cure of delirium from grief. 
Functional affection of the heart of seven years 
standing. 

Six cures of rheumatism. 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 65 

A few of these cases occurred in University- 
College Hospital. 

1844. — A remarkable cure of hiccough, 

A cure of epilepsy of fifteen years standing. 

A cure of obstinate spinal irritation. 

Cure of a diseased knee in a child. 

Rheumatism, eighteen cases cured. 

Diseased kidney. 

Asthma. 

Neuralgia, four cases. 

Enlarged glands, two cases. 

Inflamed knee joint. 

Contraction of an arm. 

Headache, two cases of long standing. 

Melancholy, two cases. 

Deafness. 

Withered arm after rheumatism. 

Inflammation of the eye, two cases. 

Quinsy. 

Loss of voice. 

Chlorosis. 

Injured knee and arm, and sprained wrist. 

1845. — Ophthalmia, four cases. 
Inflammation of the lungs, and delirium; pro- 
nounced hopeless. 
Rheumatism. 
'Neuralgia, seven cases. 
Uterine disease. 
Hysterical epilepsy, five cases. 
St. Vitus's dance, two cases. 



66 Vital Magnetism. 

Nervous debility. 

Insanity. 

Brain fag. 

Deafness. 

Inflammatory loss of voice. 

Erysipelas, two cases. 

Contracted finger. 

Diseased elbow. 

Contracted foot. 

Asthma, two cases. 

Amaurosis. 

Opacity of the cornea. 

Stomach affection, with great emaciation. 

Painless amputations, five cases. 

Painless removal of tumors, three cases. 

Painless removal of breast. 

Painless removal of polypus from the nose. 

Painless extension of a contracted cicatrix or scar 

Several extractions of teeth without pain. 

1846. — Epilepsy, nine cases. 
Neuralgia, ten cases. 
Rheumatism, thirteen cases. 
Headache, six cases. 
Loss of voice, four cases. 
Fatuity and insanity. 
Melancholia. 
St. Vitus's dance. 
Deafness, three cases. 
Disease of spinal marrow. 
Toothache, three cases. 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 67 

Palsy of half the body„ 

Convulsions. 

Brain irritability, severe. 

Dumbness of many years standing. 

Spasms. 

Diseased breast, pronounced cancer and con- 
demned to operation. 

Diseased lung, pronounced hopeless consumption 
by Dr. Todd. 

Dropsy. 

Inflammation of the eyes, four cases. 

Disease of bladder. 

Sprain. 

Indigestion, two cases. 

Amputations, six painless cases. 

Removal of tumors, twenty-one painless cases, 
weighing from 30 to 112 lbs. 

Cutting out a nail. 

Application of strong acid to a sore. 

Application of red hot iron to a sore. 

Application of caustic to eye, many cases. 

Removal, painlessly, of enlarged testis. 

Removal of breast, two cases. 

Tapping, two cases. 

Operations for fistula, &c, eleven cases. 

Injecting hydrocele, five cases. 

Operation for cataract. 

Extending a contracted knee. 

Extractions of teeth, numerous. 

Dividing the tendon of the heel. 



68 Vital Magnetism. 

1847. — Rheumatism, three cases. 

Headache. 

Hypochondriasis. 

Rigidity of muscles. 

Indigestion. 

Irritation of the bladder. 

Twisting of the head, two cases. 

Affection of the heart. 

Short-sightedness. 

Ophthalmia, three cases. 

Loss of voice. 

Deafness, five cases. 

Injury of the knee. 

Abscess. 

After pains. 

Hiccough, 12 years' standing. 

Strangury. 

White swelling. 

St. Vitus's dance. 

Injury of the spine. 

Pain of chest and spitting of blood. 

Asthma. 

Palsy. 

Painless operations were — 
Removal of a breast. 

Removal of eight tumors, one 40 lbs. and another 
100 lbs. in weight. 

Opening of a whitlow. 

Cutting down upon and tying an artery. 

Extractions of teeth, numerous. 



The Prificipal Therapeutical Effects. 69 

1848. — Neuralgia, eleven cases. 
Rheumatism, sixteen cases. 
Epilepsy, three cases. 
St. Vitus's dance. 
Loss of voice, two cases. 
Painful affection of the heart. 
Involuntary movements of an arm. 
Cataleptic insanity. 
Palsy, five cases. 
Contraction of a finger. 
Hysteria. 

Chronic inflammation of an elbow. 
Inflammatory swelling of the face. 
Inflammation of the brain. 
Inflammation of the throat. 
Acute gout. 
Headache, two cases. 
Ulcers. . 
Lumbar abscess. 
Diseased knee. 

Enlargement of glands, three cases. 
Painless operations through the year were : 
Removal of tumors, some of very great weight 
and size, thirty-four cases. 
Amputation of a great toe. 
For hydrocele 
Lithotomy. 

Extraction of teeth, numerous. 
Removal of scirrhus, two cases. 
Caustic to sore. 
Unconscious parturition, two cases. 



70 Vital Magnetism. 

1849. — Neuralgia cured, seven cases. 

Rheumatism, thirty-six cases. 

Palsy, five cases. 

Epilepsy, two cases. 

Insanity, five cases. 

Deafness, two cases ; greatly improved five. 

Dumbness from palsy. 

Blindness of 26 years' duration, from opacity of 
the cornea ; also another of similar character of 
one year's standing. 

Spinal affection of long standing. 

Dropsy, two cases. 

Palpitation. 

Scrofulous ulcerations, much improved, four cases. 

Nervous debility, three cases. 

Vomiting, of two months' duration. 

1850. — Cured — 

Rheumatism, nineteen cases. 

Hysteria, three cases. 

Epilepsy, two cases. 

Wry neck. 

Gout. 

Long standing vomiting. 

Chronic headache, three cases. 

Spinal irritation. 

Neuralgia, ten cases. 

Palpitation. 

Spinal and general debility, two cases. 

Nervousness. 

Violent fits, two cases. 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 7 1 

Deafness, three cases. 

Insanity, three cases. 

Delirium tremens. 

St. Vitus's dance, three cases. 

Loss of voice, five cases. 

Inflammatory headache. 

Diseased finger. 

Spitting of blood. 

Polypus of the uterus. 

Ulcer of uterus, two cases. 

Sprain. 

Ulcerated glands. 

Dropsy, two cases. 

Chronic inflammation of lungs, two cases, 

Ulcer in the neck. 

Chlorosis, two obstinate cases. 

Heart disease. 

Inflammation of the eyes, five cases. 

Erysipelas, two cases. 

Inflammation of the knee-joint. 

Inflammation of the bladder. 

Delirium of fever. 

Abscess of ear, of long standing. 

Constipation, three cases. 

185 1. — The cures were — 

Ulcers of the leg with varicose veins, two cases. 
Chronic inflammation of the eye, with ulcers of 
the cornea, two cases. 
Injured leg. 
Injured hip. 



72 Vital Magnetism. 

Lockjaw. 

Chlorosis. 

Chlorosis and neuralgia. 

Deafness, two cases; one of seven years' duration. 

Loss of voice. 

Neuralgia, thirteen cases. 

Wry neck. 

Asthma. 

St. Vitus's dance. 

Convulsive and rigid fits. 

Rheumatism, fifteen cases. 

Epilepsy. 

Spinal irritation, three cases. 

Inflammation of the face. 

Palsy of the legs. 

Gout. 

Dyspepsia. 

Palsy, four cases. 

Polypus of uterus. 

Inflammation or neuralgia of uterus. 

Insanity, two cases. 

Hysteria, with convulsions and delirium. 

1852. — Severe cutaneous disease. 

Insanity. 

Despondency. 

Sleeplessness and dimness of sight. 

Palsy, two cases. 

Stiff knee. 

Uterine disease. 

Spinal curvature and hysteria. 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects, 73 

Inflammation of the face. 

Rickets. 

Erysipelas. 

Epilepsy. 

Gout. 

Weakness of knees. 

Weakness of ankles. 

Spasmodic cough. 

Vomiting blood. 

St. Vitus's dance. 

Neuralgia, nine cases. 

Headache, five cases. 

Loss of voice. 

Palpitation. 

Rheumatism, six cases. 

Stiff knee. 

Trembling and nervousness. 

Blindness of seventeen years. 

Lockjaw. 

Inflammation of the eyes. 

Removal of after pains. 

The full particulars in each case of this great 
array of solid facts are carefully spread upon the 
record by Dr. Elliotson, and, coming from so emi- 
nent a source, require no endorsement from any 
man, and leave no chance for cavil at the immense 
'power exerted by this great natural agent, for the 
cases themselves were generally of the most despe- 
rate and intractable character. 

But I must be permitted to add, that many of 



74 Vital Magnetism. 

these statements have been abundantly verified in 
my own experience during the past twenty-five 
years. Some things stated may seem paradoxical; 
it may be incomprehensible how a power, exerted 
in the same way and apparently to the same 
extent, shall at once be a " calmant and a stimu- 
lant," and that the circulation by the same 
means may be increased or depressed ; but it is 
nevertheless strictly true. I have often reduced 
a pulsation from 145 to 100 in half an hour, 
and found it remain at about this point up to 
convalescence. I have raised a depressed circula- 
tion from an equally low point to its normal state 
quite as quickly, and this is the uniform testimony 
of all good operators. These effects are often 
absolutely under the will of the operator up to 
the point where a natural equilibrium is reached, 
and as they follow so directly and rapidly on the 
initiation of the treatment, nothing is left to guess- 
work : the results are seen at once, and, conse- 
quently, carry their own conviction. 

In the line I have marked out for myself I omit 
specific cases in my own practice, but they have 
often been as startling as any I have seen recorded, 
especially in spasmodic action. 

I will, however, say this, in regard to my own 
experience : There is one complaint prevalent in 
many sections of this country known as Chills and 
Fever, for which this treatment seems almost 
specific. I have cured many cases of long standing 
by a single treatment, often taking a case in the 



The Principal Therapeutical Effects. 75 

midst of a violent rigor, and stopping the spasm 
in ten minutes — the cures remaining permanent. 
Little or nothing is published on this form of dis- 
ease in foreign works on magnetism, and I call 
attention to it that others may make a similar test. 

The first case of the kind I treated was my own 
brother, who had been suffering two months, with 
no progress towards recovery. He had been sub- 
jected to the usual heroic doses of quinine, arsenic, 
&c, without success. On the approach of a chill I 
one day magnetized him, and in ten minutes he 
was relieved ; sleep supervened, which lasted thirty 
minutes longer, at the end of which he awoke, well, 
and has never had a symptom of its return, after a 
lapse of twenty-six years. He was, at the time, a 
lad of eleven years of age. 

I could follow this up with many other remark- 
able cases, but this must suffice. I have only pre- 
sented it here because of the personal knowledge of 
the permanency of the effects of a single treatment 
given a quarter of a century ago. 

Sir J. D. Brandis, physician to the King of Sweden, 
cautious and conservative, could say that " mag- 
netism will often be found efficacious in cases of 
defective sight and hearing, as also in cachexios of 
the vegetative organism — such as scrofula, rachitis, 
&c. — and more especially in those of the sensorial 
and intellectual systems." This eminent plvysician 
mentions the case of an elderly man who suffered 
from obstinate gout, with stiffness and calculous 
concretions in the joints, who was cured by the 



76 Vital Magnetism. 

application of magnetism alone ; and also that of 
a young man affected with a severe paralysis of the 
leg and foot, with loss of flesh, and cold in the dis- 
eased limb, who was completely cured in the same 
way. (See Brandis ; ueber psychische Heilmittel tend 
Magnetism us, 1802,) 



VII. 



ANESTHETIC EFFECTS OF VITAL MAGNETISM. 

This branch of the subject has always been re- 
ceived either with deadly opposition or open- 
mouthed wonder, and, since the application of ether, 
nitrous oxide and chloroform, it has been largely 
superseded by those agents ; their discovery, thirty 
years ago, alone prevented the general adoption, so 
far as applicable, of Animal Magnetism in painless 
surgery. Its introduction was greeted with bitter 
opposition by some of the great lights of the period, 
who solemnly contended that pain was a wise pro- 
vision of nature, and should not be interfered with. 

Dr. James Esdaile, surgeon in the hospitals of 
Bengal and Calcutta, in India, was most enterpris- 
ing and successful in the application of magnetism 
in painless surgery. He published the results of 



Anaesthetic Effects of Vital Magnetism. 7 7 

his experiments in England in 1843, in a work 
entitled Mesmerism in India, in which he gives the 
particulars of two hundred and twenty-six cases, 
the majority of which were of a difficult nature. 
Amongst them were recorded amputations of breast 
and of arms ; removals of fifteen tumors, weighing 
from eight to eighty pounds each ; operations for 
stone ; straightening contracted limbs, &c, &c. 

These cases were perfectly authenticated by the 
best British residents of India, including the Gover- 
nor-General, although the high character of Dr. 
Esdaile was itself a sufficient guarantee of the 
truthfulness of his statements. The publication of 
these facts produced an immense sensation through- 
out England, France and Germany, and they were 
speedily duplicated in various places on the conti- 
nent of Europe. A detail of the experiments would 
fill a large volume. 

In Dr. Brown Sequard's lectures upon " Nervous 
Force," delivered in Boston in 1874, he speaks of 
this form of anaesthesia as follows : 

" As regards the power of producing anaesthesia, 
it seems to me unfortunate that the discovery of 
ether was made just when it was. It was, as you 
well know, in 1846 or 1847 that the use of ether as 
an anaesthetic was begun. It started from this city 
(Boston). At that time in England, Dr. Forbes was 
trying to show from facts observed in England, and 
especially in India, from the practice of Dr. Esdaile, 
that something which was called Mesmerism, but 
which, after all, was nothing but a peculiar state of 



78 Vital Magnetism. 

somnambulism induced in patients, gave to them 
the idea that they were deprived of feeling ; so that 
they were in reality under the influence of their 
imagination, and operations were performed that 
were quite painless. I say that it was a pity that 
ether was introduced just then, as it prevented the 
progress of our knowledge as to this method of 
producing anaesthesia. My friend Dr. Broca took 
it up in 1857-8 and pushed it very far ; and for a 
time it was the fashion in Paris to have amputa- 
tions performed after having been anaesthetized by 
the influence of Braidism or Hypnotism. A great 
many operations were performed in that way that 
were quite painless. But it was a process that was 
long and tedious, and surgeons were in a hurry 
and gave it up. 

" I regret it very much, as there has never been a 
case of death from that method of producing anaesthesia, 
while you well know that a great many cases of 
death have been produced by other methods. 

" Not only anaesthesia may be produced, but the 
secretions may be very powerfully affected by the 
influence of the mind over the body. 

" Every one knows, also, that the secretions of 
bile, the secretions of tears, and the secretion of 
saliva, are very much under the influence of the 
nervous system. The purging of the bowels, which 
depends on a secretion there, or a secretion in the 
liver, is also much dependent on the influence of 
the imagination." (N. Y. Tribune Extra, April 9, 
1874,/. 34.) 



Anaesthetic Effects of Vital Magnetism. 79 

In reply to the very natural inquiry why this safe 
method has not been adhered to, the remark of Dr. 
Sequard affords the only solution I know of, viz.: 
" // was a process that was long and tedious •, and the 
surgeons were in a hurry and gave it up.' 1 

It would seem, however, that most people who 
desire to avoid the risk of death would try to ob- 
tain this desirable result, so concisely summed up 
by Dr. Sequard: " There has never bee?i a case of death 
fro?n that method of producing a?icesthesia, while you well 
know that a great many cases of death have been produced 
by other methods." 

For general practice I admit that the excuse of 
the surgeons " being in a hurry " has force, but we 
can imagine many cases where anxious friends 
would be in a position to make the surgeons wait 
until this method had been tried, before incurring 
any risk that could otherwise be avoided. 



VIII. 

ON QUALIFICATIONS OF MAGNETIC PHYSICIANS. 

If nervous force, or vital magnetism, could be 
bottled up and purchased of the apothecaries, it 
would at once revolutionize the practice of med- 
icine; but in a practice that needs a grand natural 
adaptation, moral and physical qualities of the 
highest order, and a benevolence untiring under 
labors the most exhausting, we can see difficulties 
mountain high to embarrass physicians and sur- 
geons described by Dr. Sequard as being "in a 
hurry." 

In no one thing do writers upon magnetism agree 
more perfectly than in requiring the very highest 
personal and moral qualifications. 

Without enumerating authors in exte?iso, I will 
group a few of these requirements as set forth by 
others. 

"Benevolence of disposition; a strong, steady 
will to direct; power of abstraction and concentra- 
tion; confidence in himself without vanity; estab- 
lished moral character; well regulated life; delicacy 
of manner; patience and good temper." 

In connection with these qualities, must be, first 
and controlling, an inborn natural magnetic force, 
able to expend itself without material exhaustion; 



On Qualifications of Magnetic Physicians. 8 1 

and thoroughly successful magnetic practitioners 
are found perhaps in the ratio of only one in a 
thousand persons. 

It may be objected to this practice that its de- 
mands are singular and impracticable; but a little 
reflection will show that they are paralleled in other 
departments of the healing art. Doctor Henry A. 
Hartt lectured in Association Hall, New York, re- 
cently, in favor of the establishment of a " Hospital 
for the treatment of Chronic Diseases." After a 
searching analysis of past and present methods of 
treating disease, he made the following declaration 
in regard to the qualifications of practitioners for 
the sphere of labor which he was advocating: 

"The treatment of chronic diseases requires a 
peculiar mental and moral constitution, and it would 
be just as impossible to find in every physician a 
man adapted to this particular field, as it would be 
to find in every clergyman a brilliant orator, in 
every lawyer an able jurist, in every scientist a pro- 
found logician, or in every student of literature a 
magnificent poet. The grand qualifications for this 
sphere of labor are grit, patience, energy, and the irre- 
sistible magnetism of an unconquerable faith." 

Words fitly spoken; true of every man who really 
succeeds as a physician; and without these endow- 
ments no amount of technical knowledge will bring 
brilliant success. 

But, crucial as this test might appear as applied to 
the flippant " younger members of the Association " 
who received Dr. Hartt's suggestions with "marked 



Vital Magnetism. 



dissatisfaction," the silvered heads of experience, 
embracing so many of the wisest men in the pro- 
fession, thoroughly endorsed his views. No better 
statement of the qualifications of a successful mag- 
netic physician could have been made than that so 
tersely summed up in "grit, patience, energy, and the 
irresistible magnetism of a7i unconquerable faith /' for 
these elements cover that " mental and moral con- 
stitution " so eminently required in a good mag- 
netic practitioner; and they are just as rare in 
the field of magnetic practice as in the medical 
world. These qualities are more imperatively de- 
manded in magnetic practice, because, while most 
forms of acute attacks flee readily before the mag- 
netic touch, it is generally in chronic forms of 
disease, when medication has done its best, or its 
worst, when hope has well nigh taken its eternal 
flight, and the vital spark is almost extinguished, 
that magnetism is sought as a last resort, and a 
miracle expected. In such cases faith has again to 
be rekindled, hope inspired, and again and again, 
untiringly, a new nervous life is required to be 
poured upon the patient, until he has reached his 
own normal nervous equilibrium. 

To calmly, patiently and faithfully respond to a 
demand like this, so exhaustive in its character, re- 
quires, in the operator, heroic qualities of benevo- 
lence, demanded of no other practice, for he is 
parting with a vitality all his own, which no medi- 
umistic theory, or ghostly supernatural interven- 
tion will make good. Nature's divine law of com- 



On Qualifications of Magnetic Physicians. 8$ 

pensation can alone do this. Every one who has 
trodden the path will testify to this truth, and the 
experienced alone are competent to speak thereon. 

The mere mechanical attitude of the magnetic 
physician will never achieve noble results; while it 
may produce a certain class of phenomena upon a 
small percentage of natural sensitives. For the over- 
throw of obstinate forms of disease there is needed 
a vitalizing energy, that no rubbing process, mas- 
sage, trifisis, frictions or mechanical movement cure 
can impart; and valuable as are these processes for 
nerve exercise, they must not be confounded with 
vital magnetism, as is often done. 

I have known intelligent physicians to recom- 
mend a " rubbing doctor " for cases where rest 
was required, and not motion; the consequence 
was a restless, sleepless, nervous condition, instead 
of the soothing influence which magnetism would 
produce. They charged the failure of the effort 
to magnetism, which, in their ignorance, they sup- 
posed they were prescribing. 

Only when magnetism is as well understood here 
as it is in Europe, and when it has been as carefully 
studied in its effects, will errors be avoided both in 
the professional and non-professional mind. 

In France it is well established as a practice. In 
Prussia it is used extensively by the authority of 
government. In Sweden degrees are granted by 
the University of Stockholm to those who stand 
an examination upon its laws and effects. In Rus- 
sia, a commission of medical men, under direction 



84 Vital Magnetism. 

of the Emperor, inquired into it thirty years ago, 
and at that time reported it a " very important 
agent," and the first physician of the Emperor, with 
other eminent Russian physicians of St. Peters- 
burgh, commended in highest terms its utility; 
and at Moscow a systematic course of treatment, 
under the best auspices, has been employed for 
years. 

In Denmark it is practiced by physicians under 
a royal ordinance, and by a decree of the College 
of Health. It has made the same advances in 
Holland; and has numbered a host of eminent 
English physicians amongst its friends for the last 
thirty years. 

A recently returned lady missionary from Bur- 
mah, who comes home after an absence of ten 
years, informs me that it is extensively and intelli- 
gently practiced amongst the Burmans ; that she 
herself had received the best effects from the treat- 
ment in a nervous prostration induced by the 
enervating climate, when every other means had 
failed. 

The natives denominate it " The medicine over 
all medicines." 



IX. 



TYPICAL CASES — THE CASE OF HARRIET MARTINEAU. 

It was a fashion for a time to speak of magnetic 
cures as some form of delusion, and in the midst of 
the war upon the science and its facts, thirty years 
ago, Miss Harriet Martineau, the celebrated English 
authoress, was restored to health by magnetic treat- 
ment after an exhaus^ag illness of five years' dura- 
tion. ^ 

The following account by this gifted lady was 
published in a series of letters, in 1845, and gives a 
clear and lucid statement of an experience very 
touching and convincing, and marked with the same 
vigor that accompanied everything that emanated 
from her pen. 

She says: "During these five years, I never felt 
wholly at ease for a single hour. 

"I seldom had severe pain; but never comfort. 
A besetting sickness, almost disabling me from tak- 
ing food for two years, brought me very low, and, 
together with other evils, it confined me to a con- 
dition of almost entire stillness — to a life passed be- 
tween my bed and my sofa. 

" It was not until after many attempts at gentle 
exercise that my friends agreed with me that the 
cost was too great for any advantage gained; and 



86 Vital Magnetism. 

at length it was clear that even going down one 
flight of stairs was imprudent. 

" From that time I lay still; and by means of this 
undisturbed quiet, and such an increase of opiates 
as kept down my most urgent discomforts, I passed 
the last two years with less suffering than the 
three preceding. 

" There was, however, no favorable change in the 
disease. Everything was done for me that- the best 
medical skill and science could suggest, and the 
most indefatigable humanity and family affection 
devise; but nothing could avail beyond mere 
alleviation. My dependence on opiates was des- 
perate. My kind and vigil anWnedical friend, — the 
most sanguine man I know, and the most bent upon 
keeping his patients hopeful, — avowed to me last 
Christmas, and twice afterwards, that he found him- 
self compelled to give up all hope of affecting the 
disease, — of doing more than keeping me up, in 
collateral respects, to the highest practicable point. 
This was no surprise to me; for when any specific 
medicine is taken for above two years without 
affecting the disease, there is no more ground for 
hope in reason than in feeling. 

" In June last, I suffered more than usual, and 
new measures of alleviation were resorted to. As 
to all essential points of the disease, I was never 
lower than immediately before I made the trial of 
mesmerism. 

" If, at any time during my illness, I had been 
asked with serious purpose, whether I believed 



Typical Cases. 87 

there was no resource for me, I should have replied 
that mesmerism might perhaps give me partial 
relief. I thought it right, and still think it was 
right, to wear out all other means first. It was 
not, however, for the reason that the testimony 
might be thus rendered wholly unquestionable — 
though I now feel that my years of suffering were 
but a light loss for such a result; — it was for a more 
personal reason that I waited. 

" Surrounded as I was by relations and friends, 
who, knowing nothing of mesmerism, regarded it 
as a delusion or an imposture, — tenderly guarded 
and cared for as I was by those who so thought, and 
who went even further than myself in deference to 
the ordinary medical science and practice, it was 
morally impossible for me to entertain the idea of 
trying mesmerism while any hope was cherished 
from other means." 

After having decided to make a trial of vital 
magnetism, and the lapse of some time, she pro- 
ceeds : 

"At the end of four months I was, so far as my 
own feelings could be any warrant, quite well. My 
mesmerist and I are not so precipitate as to con- 
clude my disease yet extirpated, and my health 
restored beyond all danger of a relapse; because 
time can only prove such facts. We have not yet 
discontinued the mesmeric treatment, and I have not 
yet re-entered upon the hurry and bustle of the 
world. The case is thus not complete enough for 
a professional statement. 



Vital Magnetism 



"But, as I am aware of no ailment, and am re- 
stored to the full enjoyment of active days, and 
nights of rest, to the full use of my powers of 
body and mind; and, as many invalids, still lan- 
guishing in such illness as I have recovered from, 
are looking to me for guidance in the pursuit of 
health by this means, I think it right not to delay 
giving a precise statement of my own mesmeric 
experience, and my observations of some different 
manifestations in the instance of another patient 
in the same house. 

" A further reason against delay is, that it would 
be a pity to omit the record of some of the fresh 
feelings and immature ideas which attend an early 
experience of mesmeric influence, and which it may 
be an aid and comfort to novices to recognize from 
my record. 

" And again, as there is no saying, in regard to a 
subject so obscure, what is trivial and what is not, 
the fullest detail is likely to be the wisest, and the 
earlier the narrative the fuller; while better know- 
ledge will teach us hereafter what are the non-essen- 
tials that may be dismissed. 

" Nothing is to me more unquestionable and more 
striking about this influence than the absence of all 
reaction. Its highest exhilaration is followed, not by 
depression or exhaustion, but by a further renova- 
tion. From the first hour to the present, I have 
never fallen back a single step. Every point gained 
has been steadily held. 

" Improved composure of nerve and spirits has 



Typical Cases. 89 

followed upon every mesmeric exhilaration. I have 
been spared all the weakness of convalescence, and 
carried through all the usually formidable enter- 
prises of return from deep disease to health, with a 
steadiness and tranquility astonishing to all wit- 
nesses. 

" At this time, before venturing to speak of my 
health as established, I believe myself more firm in 
nerve, more calm and steady in mind and spirits 
than at any time in my life before. 

" So much consideration of the natural and com- 
mon fear of the mesmeric influence as pernicious 
excitement, as a kind of intoxication. 

" On four days, scattered throughout six weeks, 
our seance was prevented by visitors or other ac- 
cidents. On these four days the old distress and 
pain recurred: but never on the days when I was 
mesmerized. 

" From the middle of August (after I had discon- 
tinued all medicines but opiates) the departure of 
the worst pains and oppressions of my disease 
made me suspect that the complaint itself, the in- 
curable, hopeless disease of so many years, was 
reached: and now I first began to glance towards 
the thought of a recovery. 

" In two or three weeks more it became certain 
that I was not deceived; and the radical amend- 
ment has since gone on without intermission." 

At this time a change was made in the mag- 
netizer for one of higher power, and she con- 
tinues : 



90 Vital Magnetism. 

" The visual appearances were much the same as 
before, but the experience of recovery was more 
rapid. I can describe it only by saying, that I felt 
as if my life was fed day by day. The vital force 
infused or induced was as clear and certain as the 
strength given by food to those who are faint from 
hunger. 

" I am careful to avoid theorizing at present on a 
subject which has not yet furnished me with a suf- 
ficiency of facts; but it can hardly be called theoriz- 
ing to say (while silent as to the nature of the 
agency) that the principle of life itself — that prin- 
ciple which is antagonistic to disease — appears to 
be fortified by the mesmeric influence; and thus 
far we may account for mesmerism being no specific, 
but successful through the widest range of diseases 
that are not hereditary, and have not caused dis^ 
organization. 

" No mistake about mesmerism is more prevalent 
than the supposition that it can avail only in ner- 
vous diseases. 

" The numerous cases recorded of cure of rheuma- 
tism, dropsy, cancer and the whole class of tumors — 
cases as distinct and almost as numerous as those 
of cure of paralysis, epilepsy and other diseases of 
the brain and nerves — must make an inquirer cau- 
tious of limiting his anticipations and experiments 
by any theory of exclusive action on the nervous 
system. Whether mesmerism, and, indeed, any in- 
fluence whatever, acts exclusively through the ner- 
vous system is another question." 



Typical Cases. 91 

Her abandonment of opiates is then described in 
the final happy termination of her case : 

"The same fortifying influence carried me 
through the greatest effort of all — the final sever- 
ance from opiates. 

"What that struggle is, can be conceived only by 
those who have experienced, or watched it with 
solicitude in a case of desperate dependence on them 
for years. No previous reduction can bridge over 
the chasm which separates an opiated from the 
natural state. 

" I see in my own experience a consoling promise 
for the diseased, and also for the intemperate, 
who may desire to regain a natural condition, but 
might fail through bodily suffering. When the 
mesmeric condition can be induced, the transition 
may be made comparatively easy. It appears, how- 
ever, that opiates are a great hindrance to the pro- 
duction of the sleep; but even so, the mesmeric in- 
fluence is an inestimable help, as I can testify." 

Miss Martineau sums up the account of her own 
case in the following manner: 

" Before leaving the narrative of my own case for 
that of another, widely different, I put in a claim 
for my experiment being considered rational. It 
surely was so, not only on account of my previous 
knowledge of facts, and of my hoplessness from any 
other resource, but on grounds which other sufferers 
may share with me: — on the ground that though the 
science of medicine may be exhausted in any par- 
ticular case, it does not follow that curative means 



92 Vital Magnetism. 

are exhausted: — on the ground of the ignorance of 
all men of the nature and extent of the reparative 
power which lies under our hand, and which is 
vaguely indicated under the term "Nature": — on 
the ground of the ignorance of all men, regarding the 
very structure, and, much more, the functions of 
the nervous system: — and on the broad and ultimate 
ground of our total ignorance of the principle of 
life — of what it is and where it resides, and whe- 
ther it can be reached, and in any way beneficially 
affected by a voluntary application of human 
energy. 

"It seemed to me rational to seek a way of re- 
freshment first, and then to health, amidst this 
wilderness of ignorance, rather than to lie perishing 
in their depths. 

" The event seems to prove it so. The story ap- 
pears to me to speak for itself. If it does not 
assert itself to all, — if any should, as- is common in 
cases of restoration by Mesmerism, try to account 
for the result by any means but those which are 
obvious, supposing a host of moral impossibilities 
rather than admit a plain new fact, I have no con- 
cern with such objectors or objections. 

" In a case of blindness cured, once upon a time, 
and cavilled at and denied, from hostility to the 
means, an answer was given which we are wont to 
consider sufficiently satisfactory, ' One thing I know, 
that whereas I was blind, now I see.' Those who 
could dispute the fact after this must be left to 
their doubts. 



Typical Cases. 93 

" They could, it is true, cast out their restored 
brother; but they could not impair his joy in his 
new blessing, nor despoil him of his far higher priv- 
ileges of belief in and allegiance to his benefactor. 

" Thus, whenever, under the Providence which 
leads on our race to knowledge and power, any new 
blessing of healing arises, it is little to one who 
enjoys it what disputes are caused among observers. 

" To him the privilege is clear and substantial. 
Physically, having been diseased, he is now well. 
Intellectually, having been blind, he now sees. For 
the wisest this is enough. And for those of a 
somewhat lower order, who have a restless craving 
for human sympathy in their recovered relish of 
life, there is almost a certainty, that somewhere 
near them there exist hearts susceptible of simple 
faith in the unexplored powers of nature, and 
minds capable of an ingenuous recognition of plain 
fact, though they be new, and must wait for a the- 
oretical solution." 

These are not the words of a deluded, weak- 
minded enthusiast; they are the strong clear words 
of one of the most gifted of England's daughters, 
ringing out at a time when envy, jealousy, and dis- 
trust, assailed the possibility of magnetic cure; 
and so valuable was this testimony in the stormy 
days of this science that the heroic sentiment of 
Miss Martineau seems vindicated when she asserts 
that her " years of suffering were but a light cost " 
that her testimony " might thus be rendered wholly 
unquestionable." In passing judgment on her 



94 Vital Magnetism. 

statement we may well recall the high mental cul- 
ture of the witness as displayed in her productions, 
whose power and versatility establishes the value 
of her personal testimony in favor of Magnetism, 
while her refusal to accept a pension from the 
British Government, when twice tendered, in ac- 
knowledgment of her services as a writer on ques- 
tions of political economy, because it would con- 
flict with the spirit of her own teaching, guaran- 
tees an independence and honesty of expression 
beyond cavil. 

This esteemed woman's life had its burden lifted, 
and was prolonged thirty years by the application 
of vital magnetism, and the world has been made 
so much richer by the contributions of the brain of 
one of its best and sweetest workers. 

The full particulars of the uterine disease under 
which Miss Martineau suffered, will be found de- 
tailed by Doctors Naido of Venice, and Greenhow, 
and Sir C. M. Clarke, of England, in vol. 3, pp. 89, 
90, 91 — 2, of the Zoist. 

The grossest misrepresentations were made, both 
as to the cure itself and Miss M.'s views upon the 
subject : and to correct these she wrote as follows : 

Ambleside, Dec. 11, 1845. 

Sir : I am greatly obliged by you letting me know, through 

Mrs. , the notions that are abroad on the subject of 

my health and my present views of mesmerism. Nothing can 
be more absurdly false than they are. I am. in robust health, 
and have not had one day's illness since I avowed my cure by 
mesmerism. My long daily walks and the literary labor I un- 
dergo without fatigue, have satisfied all who know me that I 



Typical Cases. 95 

am perfectly well. I myself am fully aware that I am well for 
the first time in my life, and that I owe my health wholly and 
solely to mesmerism. My gratitude to those who guided me 
to this remedy, and who administered it is, I need not say, as 
strong as in the early days of my recovered case. 

That my convictions remain what they were a year ago, is 
known to all my personal acquaintances, because they are 
aware that if I had changed my opinions, I should have made 
a recantation as free and full as my avowal. 

I trust, too, that they know that a fact in natural philosophy, 
once ascertained by experiment, can never again be disbelieved. 

But, as there are many persons who know neither of these 
things, and who yet may have power to discourage inquiries 
into mesmerism, an inquiry which I think it my duty to pro- 
mote by any means in my power, I have no objection to 
authorize your making any use you think proper of this letter. 
I remain, sir, sincerely yours, 

HARRIET MARTINEAU. 

Capt. James. 

The grand tributes of admiration bestowed by so 
many able writers upon the genius of this distin- 
guished woman since her decease, bring all her 
graces and powers to mind, and remind us that the 
memory of the just is precious. 



THE EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF ANNE VIALS. 

Rev. Geo. Sandby, in his valuable work " Mesmer- 
ism and Its Opponents," published in London, 
gives a circumstantial account of a most extraor- 
dinary case as follows ; 

"Anne Vials is the daughter of Samuel Vials, of 
the Albany Parish in St. Alban's, who formerly drove 



g6 Vital Magnetism. 

the mail cart from thence to Watford. For a short 
time this poor girl gained her livelihood by work- 
ing in a silk factory. From the scrofulous charac- 
ter of her constitution, she was not always equal to 
full employment ; but in 1837, when she was only 
sixteen years of age, she was compelled to give up 
work altogether. For her mother fell sick with a 
long and pining illness, under which, after much 
suffering, she finally sank ; and during which she 
was confined to her bed, and required the constant 
presence of a nurse. 

" Poor Anne, therefore, left her calling at the fac- 
tory, took her place at her mother's couch, and was 
her unwearied attendant night and day. So feeble, 
indeed, was the patient, that she could scarcely be 
quitted for a moment ; and for a long year, there- 
fore, did this anxious and affectionate child sit by 
her parent's bed the whole night through. When 
death at length released the sufferer a fatal discov- 
ery was made. The mother's disease had taken 
strong hold of the daughter, for the overwrought 
exertions of a twelvemonth had now too clearly 
brought out the hereditary taint. 

" Anne Vials, in fact, required a nurse herself ; 
for not only was the general state of her health 
broken down, but the left arm, which for three or 
four years had been giving her much pain and un- 
easiness, became now so diseased as to totally de- 
prive her of its use. She was placed under the care 
of several medical men in succession ; the best at- 
tendance in St. Alban's was provided for her ; but 



Typical Cases. 97 

the arm every day grew more and more painful. 
Through the kindness of some charitable friends 
she was now admitted into different hospitals, one 
after the other. She was first removed to Hewel 
Hempstead Infirmary, thence to St. Bartholomew's 
Hospital, London, where she remained nine months ; 
thence to St. Thomas's, in the Borough, and thence 
to Hewel Hempstead again, *in none of which did 
she obtain any effectual benefit. The state of her 
health at length became so serious that to save her 
life some decisive measures were necessary, and she 
was taken up to London again, to Guy's Hospital, 
where her arm was amputated by Mr. Morgan the 
22d of March, 1841* 

"At the end of three months, when the wound 
was healed, she returned to St. Alban's. After she 
had been at home some little time, a violent convul- 
sive action commenced in the stump. This move- 
ment grew rapidly worse and worse. In fact, the 
stump moved up and down, day and night, unceas- 
ingly, — and much quicker, to use her own expres- 
sion, than she herself could move the other arm. 

" Her sufferings became intense, and her general 
health was affected in proportion. She was now 
moved backwards and forwards, as before, to the 
different hospitals, but without any relief. At the 
infirmary in Hewel Hempstead, they actually 
strapped the arm down, with the hope of lessening 
the movement ; but the confinement, if possible, 
made it worse, and they were compelled to unloose 
it. 



98 Vital Magnetism. 

" She was at length carried to St. George's Hos- 
pital ; here she remained three months : her health 
gradually getting worse, and the epileptic fits, from 
which she had been suffering for a . twelve-month, 
increasing in violence and duration ; when, with 
the only hope of saving her life a proposition was 
mooted of taking the stump out of the socket. My 
readers may judge by this simple fact, of the des- 
perate state to which this poor girl had now arrived ; 
for with her shattered health, it could hardly be 
expected that she should survive, even for a short 
time, so serious an operation. Fortunately for poor 
Anne, she had several benevojent friends, who, 
knowing all the circumstances of her history, had 
watched the fearful progress of her sufferings from 
the first ; and by subscriptions and various little 
Christian kindnesses had done much towards lessen- 
ing her load of sorrow ; Mr. Basil Montague, in 
particular, that excellent man, whose long and use- 
ful life has been devoted to the benefit of his fellow 
creatures, took the warmest interest in her fate ; 
she often went to his house, and there she received 
from Mrs. Montague that sympathy and considera- 
tion which woman alone is able to bestow. 

"One day the thought struck both these kind 
friends, that if anything could be of service to 
Anne in this extremity of misery, it was Mesmer- 
ism. 

" It was the faintest hope, for they had but slight 
knowledge or belief of its power : — still they men- 
tioned the case to their friend, Mr. Atkinson, and 



Typical Cases. 99 

suggested to him the idea of making a trial of what 
could be done. 

"In spite of the feeling against Mesmerism, to- 
wards him, and the almost hopeless state of the pa- 
tient, he at once on his own responsibility under- 
took the case; and seeing that it would require, for 
months, the most unremitting attention, he pro? 
cured a nurse from St. George's Hospital, and had 
the poor girl removed to his own house. 

" It was in May, 1842, about fourteen months after 
the amputation, that Anne Vials quitted the hos- 
pital to make trial of Mesmerism; and this is the 
description of Mr. Atkinson at the time he found 
her : She had sometimes three or four fits in a day, 
of a most violent nature, which continued for more 
than an hour; the stump moved up and down with- 
out cessation, not a merely nervous twitching, but 
violently up and down; she suffered continuous 
excruciating pain in the head and back, and at the 
top of the stump too the pain was most excrucia- 
ting; she had a pain too in all her limbs and joints, 
particularly in the elbow of the remaining arm, 
just as she had before amputation in the other. 

" Masses of sores were constantly breaking out 
in different parts of the body; palpitations at the 
heart, pains in the chest, suspension of the func- 
tions of nature, and a spitting of large quantities 
of blood accompanied by solid matter, were some 
of the other symptoms. 

" In short, a more terrible complication of evils 
have seldom been united in one sufferer. 



ioo Vital Magnetism 



" I shall leave it to Mr. Atkinson to give at some 
future period to the public the interesting details 
of his success. 

" Let it be sufficient to state that the process was 
most painfully laborious, occupying a large portion 
of his time, and that she remained in his house 
more than twelve months. 

" At the first few sittings the epileptic fits were 
brought on, as if by the Mesmeric effect; but this 
prevented their recurrence in her ordinary state. 
At the fourth seance, the deep sleep or trance was 
superinduced, when the action of the stump suddenly 
stopped, and from that time it never moved in that 
way again; the fits, too, ceased; the pains in the 
back of her head were almost immediately relieved; 
and a gradual improvement in her general health 
set in. 

"Upon the wonderful results of Mesmeric treat- 
ment in this case I shall make little comment; my 
readers can think for themselves; they will see 
here a poor girl, carried to and fro from hospital 
to hospital, enduring the most exquisite torture, 
and her life placed in such a state of jeopardy that 
the only hope of preserving it was recourse to a 
second and horrible operation. The arm was to 
be taken out of the socket ! An effectual mode, in 
truth, for a prevention of its movement ! 

" But from this operation was she spared by the 
action of Mesmerism; by its continued and regular 
application was a relapse prevented and an im- 
provement in her health obtained. 



Typical Cases. 101 

" Who does not see the goodness of Providence 
in vouchsafing such an agent ? Who can deny- 
that Mesmerism was to her the precious gift of 
God? 

" The facts of her case, — of her sufferings, of the 
amputation, of the movement of the stump, and 
of the other attendant evils, are known to num- 
bers, — to medical men in St. Alban's, — and to the 
surgeons and nurses in the hospitals; and it is also 
known, that all the remedies suggested for her 
benefit were fruitless; the best surgical advice was 
of no avail; but the fifth day, after the application 
of Mesmerism, the stump ceased to move, and the 
other fearful symptoms began to disappear." 

Mr. Sandby gives a very interesting account of 
curious and beautiful mental phenomena which 
attended this case in its progress towards a cure, 
but I have confined myself to the physical effects, 
as they alone come within the scope of my present 
purpose. 



A DOUBLE PHENOMENON. 

A very notable case is referred to by Rev. C. H. 
Townshend, in his " Facts in Mesmerism." He 
says : " Chardel, a French physician, and writer on 
magnetism, gives an interesting account of two 
sisters whom he mesmerized as a physician, with 
the hope of checking a tendency to consumption, 



102 Vital Magnetism. 

which they had both evinced. One evening, being 
in sleep-walking, they, as if prompted by natural in- 
stinct, entreated their mesmerizer to leave them in 
that state, only so far de-mesmerizing them as to 
cpen their eyes, and to be committed to their own 
self-guidance. Day after day they renewed their 
petition, — for day after day they felt health return- 
ing under the magnetic influence. In other re- 
spects they pursued their usual habits, and their 
mesmeric existence had its alternate periods of 
sleep and of waking, as regular as those of the 
natural life. 

" At the end of three months, their case appear- 
ing to be complete, M. Chardel conducted the sis- 
ters, accompanied by their mother, to a beautiful 
spot in the country, where he restored them to a 
knowledge of themselves. He describes, in lively 
terms, their surprise and joy at returning con- 
sciousness. 

" It was winter when they entered the mes- 
meric state — it was now spring. The ground was 
then covered with snow, but now with flowers. 
They were then looking forward to an early grave; 
but now the feeling of renewed health tinged 
everything with hope and life. Almost doubting if 
they did not dream, they threw themselves into 
their mother's arms, gathered flowers, and smelt 
them, and endeavored, by the exercise of their 
senses, to convince themselves that it was all a 
blessed reality. Not a circumstance of the past 
three months survived in their memory." 



Typical Cases. 103 

Here we have a case of physical and psycholog- 
ical phenomena united, which must be my apology, 
if any is needed, for introducing it. 



CASE OF UTERINE DISEASE WITH GENERAL NERVOUS 
DERANGEMENT. 

Doctor Henry Storer, of Queen Adelaide's Hos- 
pital, London, reports an interesting case in his 
work, " Mesmerism in Disease," that was treated by 
Mr. Vernon, of the " Institute of Mesmerism," Lon- 
don. The patient writes : 

" Sir : At Mr. Vernon's request I send you some 
account of the good resulting from the application 
of mesmerism in my own case, after an illness of 
five years. I have suffered from an internal com- 
plaint of a very painful and aggravated nature, 
partly originating from an adverse circumstance at 
the birth of an only child. 

" I experienced little or no relief from surgical 
aid during the period I have mentioned. A detailed 
account of the many years during which my health 
has slowly but surely declined, would be unneces- 
sary. I will but briefly explain my state when 
forced to apply to mesmerism for relief, as my last 
resort. I unfortunately met with a severe accident 
in the beginning of last March, in consequence of 
which my complaint was so much aggravated, that 
in the course of a few weeks I was entirely confined 
to the sofa. 



104 Vital Magnetism. 

"I was attended by Mr. R. Taylor, surgeon, of 
Brighton, and Dr. G. Hall, of 14 Old Stein. Mr. 
Taylor's reputation is too high in Brighton for me 
to doubt that his treatment of me was otherwise 
than judicious. I believe that all was done for me 
that surgical skill could do, notwithstanding which, 
each week, almost each day, saw me worse, until I 
was unable to walk, or even move, without the 
greatest pain. From June last until the end of 
November I was leeched every fourth day, yet I ex- 
perienced little or no relief from this, or any other 
treatment ; my sufferings were incessant and ago- 
nizing. 

" I was only enabled to bear them by frequent 
and large doses of morphine and other sedatives, 
which, together with the pain, produced an equally 
distressing effect on the mind. My mother was fre- 
quently told by Mr. Taylor that he knew not what to 
do for me ; that I must trust to time and to the ad- 
vantages which I received from my age (25). 

" This declaration was repeated only two days before 
I was mesmerized, when I was confined to my bed, 
and felt my strength failing rapidly, so that I could 
not endure much longer. 

" I freely confess that had I not been so hopeless 
of relief, I would not have applied to mesmerism, 
from the fact of the prejudice attending it. I will 
only premise that I believed in the power, but I did 
not believe the possibility of its efficacy in my case. 

"On the evening of the 4th of December, 1844, 
Mr. Vernon mesmerized me. When he arrived I 



Typical Cases. 105 

was in extreme pain, and in a state of excessive 
irritability and restlessness, so that I did not believe 
it possible for me to lie still to allow Mr. V. to 
make the attempt ; notwithstanding which, after 
what appeared to me to be a very short time, I felt 
that the pains moderated, and a sensation of ease and 
freedom from restlessness steal over me, which no 
opiates could ever induce. I soon lost all conscious- 
ness, and on awaking was almost free from pain. 

" That night I was far calmer than I had been 
for many months, although the pains returned. 

" Mr. Vernon continued to mesmerize me twice a 
day, with one or two exceptions. At the end of a 
week I found myself enjoying several hours of 
quiet and refreshing sleep at nights. After a fort- 
night's mesmerizing, I discontinued the opiates 
which I had regularly taken for many months, and 
was able to walk about the room without much in- 
convenience ; and at the end of three weeks I found 
sleep, appetite, and strength of body and mind re- 
stored to a degree which astonished no one more 
than myself. 

" My mother, by whose advice and persuasion I 
was induced to try mesmerism, removed with me 
to London in order to perfect my cure, which ob- 
ject has been most happily and decidedly accom- 
plished, for I am enabled to employ and exert my- 
self as well as I did six years ago, and can take 
out-door exercise without fatigue and inconven- 
ience. As a proof of which, I walked three miles 
on Friday last with perfect comfort to myself. 



io6 Vital Magnetism. 

u Should you, or any other medical man, wish for 
any more detailed account of my illness and cure, 
I must refer you to Mr. Vernon, who, I am sure, 
will be happy to reply to any inquiries. 

" Anything in my power to further so good and 
powerful a cause as mesmerism, will be gladly com- 
plied with." 

Doctor Storer, of Bath, is sufficient authority 
for the introduction of the above statement. 



CASE OF NERVOUS SUFFERING LEAVING THE PATIENT 
DUMB. 

The following case from the Zoist, is interesting, 
having occurred in Devonshire, and been recorded 
in the North Devon Journal : 

" Many of our readers will be gratified to know 
that thanks were publicly returned in the Parish 
Church of Ilfracombe, on Sunday last, for the sig- 
nal mercy of God toward the girl, Catharine Brown, 
in her restoration of speech by mesmerism, through 
the instrumentality of Mr. Davey. 

"The girl is in her fifteenth year; her name, 
Catharine Brown ; she is the daughter of a mechan- 
ic living at Compass Hill, Ilfracombe. 

" Her mother states that she was taken alarm- 
ingly ill in the month of October, 1S41 ; her com- 
plaint lying in her head, side and stomach. 

" At this time she presented a most deplorable 
picture of human wretchedness and suffering, and 



Typical Cases. 107 

her screams, which were terrific, could be heard a 
long distance. 

" She could not be left for a moment, as, during 
the absence of the attendants, she would beat her 
head against a wall most unmercifully, so as to 
leave wounds and bruises. She was likewise often 
convulsed, and, during the paroxysms, it was as 
much as two could do to hold her. 

" Many medical men of the town visited her, and 
gave her medicine ; in fact, she was an object of 
general charity, and, I believe, there was not even 
an occasional medical visitor in the town who did 
not prescribe for her. 

"After a lengthened period of suffering, the vio- 
lence of her complaint greatly subsided, but left 
her dumb ! From that period up to the time of be- 
ing first mesmerized, she had never spoken a single 
syllable. 

" After being mesmerized three times, and as 
soon as consciousness was suspended, she began to 
speak. At first her speech was slow, dwelling upon 
the first letter of the word, as in stammering, after 
a while she could distinctly pronounce her name, 
* Catharine Brown.' Those who were present will 
not soon forget the countenance of the patient upon 
being de-mesmerized. Rising from her chair, she 
ran towards a little girl in the room, crying out in / 
joyous accents, ' Oh, Mary Ann, I can speak now!' 

" A fear was entertained that the faculty of speech 
would again be lost when the patient was de-mes- 
merized ; but the fear was groundless, and was 



108 Vital Magnetism. 

wholly dissipated, on hearing her thus address her 
little friend. 

"The delight of the mother may be more easily 
imagined than described, when she found her daugh- 
ter able to speak, after being dumb for the space of 
two years and a half." 



CURE OF DEAFNESS OF LONG STANDING. 

Dr. Storer reports a case that was treated by Mr. 
Saunders, and came under his observation, as fol- 
lows : " Mary Ann Parsons, age 24, residing at 
Combe Down, near Bath, has been afflicted from 
her early youth with deafness. Her mother, hav- 
ing been relieved of rheumatism by mesmerism, 
brought her daughter for the purpose of being mes- 
merized for deafness. 

" In the mesmeric trance she prescribed ' breath- 
ing in each ear.' Within the last month we have 
mesmerized her fifteen or sixteen times, and her 
deafness is entirely removed. 

" She at last became so susceptible, that two or 
three passes sufficed to send her off into the deep- 
est coma. 

" Before mesmerism she could not hear the tick- 
ing of a watch when close to her ears ; now she can 
hear a loud ticking clock at the distance of a second 
room, and continues to this period quite well. 



Typical Cases, 109 

CASE OF SPASMODIC ASTHMA. 

Dr. Storer records another case treated under 
his supervision by Mr. Kiste. The patient was 
Elizabeth Spardens, the wife of the footman of the 
Rev. Mr. Holdsworth, who writes as follows : 

" According to your wish, I send you a copy of 
the notes taken at the time when you favored us 
with your company, and mesmerized the wife of 
my footman — an operation which has so far been 
of most essential service to her. 

" The asthma, under which she has so long suf- 
fered, was of a most distressing character ; so much 
so, that her neighbor, who inhabits a part of the 
house, was afraid to remain with her alone in the 
house unless her husband or some friend of hers 
was there also, so frightful was her appearance 
when under the attack. You know already that 
for six weeks after she was put under mesmeric in- 
fluence she had no attack ; then a slight one, brought 
on, she says, by her own imprudence, and from 
that time, now six weeks more, she has had no re- 
turn of her complaint ; her general health is im- 
proved, and she is gaining more solid flesh. I hope 
that in time the beneficial effects of mesmerism 
will be better understood and better appreciated, 
Nothing can be more unphiloscphical than the man- 
ner in which the faculty and others treat this sub- 
ject, as well as the prejudices that have been evinced, 
instead of the patient investigation which such a 
subject requires. 



no Vital Magnetism 



" If doubt leads us to neglect investigation, and 
prejudice prevents inquiry, how is knowledge in 
any science or subject to be acquired ? 

"Brixham Vicarage, Feb. 5, 1841." 

Dr. Storer says the case had been under the 
care of several medical men in the locality, who 
pronounced her case incurable, and of the worst 
possible character. 

The daily details of the treatment are too long 
for insertion ; a year has now elapsed, and she has 
enjoyed uniformly good health. Seeing me lately, 
she said in her simplicity, that frequently when sit- 
ting by herself she would " look back to former 
years, and fancy she could not be the same person." 



CASE OF NEURALGIA OR PAINFUL NERVOUS AFFEC- 
TION OF THE HEART OF MANY YEARS STANDING. 

Dr. Storer reports another very interesting case, 
Mr. Kiste again being the operator, and the Hon. 
Mrs. Hare the subject. 

For eighteen years she has suffered from neu- 
ralgia of the heart, and was successively under the 
care of Dr. Warren, Sir C. Bell, Mr. Abernethy, Dr. 
Maton, and Dr. Elliottson, but the various rem- 
edies which were suggested did not in the least 
relieve her. 

At this period she was taking forty grains of 
opium a day. Her sufferings continued unallevia- 



Typical Cases. in 

ted till the end of last year, (1844,) when she was 
fortunately introduced to Mr. Kiste. On the 16th 
of Sept. last, the lady writes, after describing 
her doubts as to the probable effect : 

" In a few minutes I felt a most unusual tran- 
quility of mind ; the objects in the room seemed 
to lose their outline, and the last things I remem- 
ber to have seen were my mesmerizer's eyes. 

" I was afterwards told that in eight minutes I 
sank down in the arm-chair, and that Mr. K. pro- 
nounced me to be in what is called mesmeric som- 
nambulism, a peculiar state of the nervous system. 

" After nearly two hours' sleep Mr. K. awoke me, 
and I felt tranquil, but very sleepy. 

" That night, for the first time, after having had 
paroxysms every night for three weeks previously, 
I was not only free from an attack, but I slept 
soundly, till late in the morning, when I awoke 
quite refreshed. 

"Since that day — Sept. 17 — I have been entirely 
free from these attacks, with the exception of sev- 
eral times I felt the symptoms when I had taken 
cold, or when Mr. K. was not with us ; but it has 
not come to anything more than a little faintness. 

U I know nothing of my former agonies, except by 
mc?nory. 

" My general constitution has changed. I am 
much thinner ; and in the course of three months 
I have twice had occasion to have my dresses 
much diminished, and I am now able to walk 
five or six miles without the least fatigue. Having 



ii2 Vital Magnetism. 

been for nearly two months free from my usual 
sufferings, Mr. Kiste proposed to me to diminish 
my doses. Although I thought this an impossibil- 
ity, I made the trial, when I found I did not, as 
formerly, feel the loss. 

" I continued by degrees to lessen the quantity, 
and from having at that time been in the habit of 
taking from sixty-six to eighty-six grains of opium 
daily, I have now reduced it to less than thirty, 
and am going on to diminish the quantity. 

" I was a dreadful sufferer for many years; I now 
am free from that suffering, and in the enjoyment 
of health and comfort. Whereas I was ill, I am 
now well ! In thus coming forward, I am fully 
aware that I expose myself to the ridicule of small 
minds and the observations of the malevolent ; to 
both I am perfectly indifferent." 



CASE OF SEVERE NERVOUS DISEASE. 

Dr. Storer reports the case of a lady named 
Larke, the daughter of a medical gentleman resid- 
ing and practising at Norwich ; her case was de- 
scribed as deplorable in the extreme by her mother, 
who said that every other mode of treatment had 
been faithfully tried without success. 

Her father was an utter disbeliever in magnetism, 
and the lady and family knew nothing more in re- 
gard to it than the common reports, and had little 



Typical Cases. 113 

expectation of benefit from its employment ; they 
consented to the treatment as they would to any 
other harmless agency when the suffering was so 
intense, and the resources of medical art afforded 
no relief. Mr. Childs says : " I was informed that 
the young lady had for above two years been en- 
tirely out of health, suffering acute and capricious 
pains in the head, teeth and face, after the slightest 
exposure to cold, and pains at the pit of the stomach 
after every meal ; that about six months previously 
she had had an attack of brain fever ; that from 
defective capillary circulation she was always shiv- 
ering from cold, and her countenance had assumed 
a perfectly exsanguineous aspect ; that she suffered 
so much from depression of spirit as to render life 
a burden ; and that for the last fourteen weeks she 
had been attacked every night by a pain extending 
over the right side of the head down to the shoulder, 
lasting for about five hours, and so acute as to 
almost deprive her of reason. Relief had been 
sought from change of air, diet, occupation and 
topical applications, and from alteratives ; yet up 
to the day in which I saw her, the disease had 
steadily persisted, and increased in violence. 

At the first treatment by magnetism, the 
physical effect was most decided, and almost in- 
stantaneous. After the first sleep, the lady experi- 
enced a sense of warmth which she had not felt for 
months, — the first night, the agonizing pain, which 
had never once intermitted for fourteen weeks, 
wholly ceased, or was superseded by only a slight 



1 14 Vital Magnetism. 

uneasiness, continuing but five minutes, instead of 
five hours. After two days this disappeared — and 
to the present time no sign of it has ever returned. 
The general improvement of her health is mani- 
fested by every indication of bodily health and vigor; 
at the end of six weeks the dull heavy languor of long 
disease had given place to the natural buoyancy of 
youth, — a colorless, lack-lustre complexion was re- 
placed by the genuine hue of health, — the hair, 
which had nearly all fallen off, not only grew rapid- 
ly in length, but sprang up thickly over the whole 
head, — the appetite became perfectly good, and the 
digestion complete. 

In fact the case presented a complete transforma- 
tion from disease to health, and the whole character 
and appearance were so entirely changed, as to be 
scarcely recognized by her friends." 

Her father, Dr. Larke, writes as follows . 

" I am now most happy to state that her recovery 
is complete, that she enjoys perfect health and 
equanimity of spirit, and is everything I could 
wish her to be. This blessing I attribute to you, 
and I think I should be wanting in every proper 
feeling if I hesitated to give my testimony to the 
case. 

"Brooke, Norfolk, March 13, 1845."' 



EPILEPSY. 



Dr. Storer reports the two following cases in pp. 
59, 60, Mesmerism in Disease : 



Typical Cases. 115 

"Was called to see Wm. Hodges, aged 19, a 
tailor of 10 South Moulton street. Three months 
previously he fell upon his left side on the ice, and, 
though his head was not struck, it was so shaken 
that he does not know how he got home. After 
reaching home he had repeated fits, decidedly epi- 
leptic, so that many men could scarcely restrain 
him ; and in four hours he was bled, relieving the 
fits for a day or two. 

" But afterwards the least noise startled him, 
and caused a fit, even the sudden cough of a child. 
They were very frequent, and each left him weak 
for an hour. I found that there had been one fit 
on the 2d, the 8th, and the 14th, and two on the 
15th. Mr. Wood mesmerized for me, treatment 
an hour daily, except on Sundays. 

" He had no fit for a fortnight after commence- 
ment of the treatment. He was then frightened 
by a person behind him saying he would be run 
over ; « felt ill — felt the fits on him,' but had no fit till 
evening, when, going up stairs in the dark, a cat 
jumped out and he was instantly seized with a par- 
oxysm. It was very severe, stronger and longer 
than usual, and he tried to bite in it, felt ill and 
stupid all night, and did not sleep. 

"He had no fit again till the second Sunday after 
this, and had another on the following Sunday. 
As they probably occurred from the omission of 
Mesmerism on Sundays, he was afterwards mes- 
merized every day till the middle of August, and 
he has never had a return to this hour, though very 



n6 Vital Magnetism. 

often frightened enough to occasion them if there 
was any predisposition left. 

" He got married in August, 1842, and I saw him 
in good health to-day (Dec. 24th)." 



EPILEPTIC HYSTERIA, WITH LOCK-JAW AND CONTRAC- 
TION OF ONE LEG. 

" Maria Pearsey, twenty-five years old, a stout 
and strong-looking person, was admitted under my 
care into University College Hospital, June 25th, 
on account of very frequent and violent fits, of an 
epileptic and hysterical character. 

" They occurred daily, and often many times in 
the day ; seized her suddenly, and produced per- 
fect insensibility and very violent convulsions, so 
that many could scarcely restrain her. 

" Her right leg was firmly bent up nearly to the 
body, and no force could bring it down. 

" Her jaw was firmly locked ; and we observed 
that four of her front teeth had been drawn, and, 
as we learnt, for the purpose of passing food into 
her mouth to prevent starvation. 

" This lamentable disease had commenced nine 
years before, when she was sixteen years of age ; 
up to which time she had enjoyed perfect health. 
She was then frightened by a young gentleman in 
the house where she was a servant, jumping sud- 
denly up before her, covered with a sheet, while 
she was opening the cellar door. She fell insensi- 



Typical Cases. 117 

ble, and remained so for three days ; and from that 
time had very violent fits, at first purely hysterical, 
but at length more of an epileptic character. 

" Not only had private practitioners failed to be of 
any service to her, but she had been in vain four 
months in St. George's Hospital, four mouths in 
Guy's Hospital, four months in St. Thomas' Hospi- 
tal, and ten months in Westminster Hospital, where 
Mr. Guthrie gave her a very large quantity of mer- 
cury and salivated her severely, and where Mr. White 
was anxious to cut off her bent up leg. 

" I determined to trust the treatment entirely to 
Mesmerism ; she was treated half an hour daily. 

" In less than a fortnight her jaw began to open ; 
it opened now daily, and on July 12, rather more 
than a fortnight, it opened widely. 

" I have had two similar cases of lock-jaw of 
some continuance in young women, since I culti- 
vated Mesmerism ; and in both I succeeded per- 
fectly. Had Mesmerism been used by those who 
treated her previously, the poor girl might have still 
been in possession of her upper and lower front 
teeth. Not only, however, had the jaw opened 
widely enough on the 25th for her to eat her dinner 
like the other patients, but her leg had relaxed so 
much that the toes touched the ground. Still she had 
no power to move it, and it was in some degree 
contracted. 

"July 28th. Her leg came quite down in the night. 
The fits lessened gradually, and she went out well in 
October j and never had a return of her complaint. 



n8 Vital Magnetism, 

" No other sensible effect was produced than 
drowsiness, and sometimes a little sleep. 

" If the passes were made quickly, she was dis- 
tressed and a fit brought on. 

" Being very nervous, and having suffered much, 
she was agitated and rendered hysterical and con- 
vulsed by any roughness of behavior, to which I 
regret she was often exposed. 

" As the leg came down, splints and rollers were 
applied, to secure the ground gained ; and, in one 
of the other cases of lock-jaw to which I have al- 
luded, I put a cork between the teeth as the jaw 
opened more and more, for the same purpose." 



CASE OF ST. VITUS DANCE. 

Dr. Elliottson reports, through the columns of 
the Zoist for July, 1843, the case of Master Linnell 
of Northampton, nine years of age, which had 
baffled a great number of medical men, when at 
length application was made to Dr. Elliottson. 

" On January 4th he was brought in a coach to 
me, and obliged to be carried into the house. Sup- 
ported by his mother he walked with great diffi- 
culty from my dining room into my library. 

" His debility was such that he could not stand 
a moment unsupported; his head hung on one side; 
his tongue out of his mouth, which constantly 
slobbered; his look was quite fatuitous: he could 



Typical Cases. 119 

not articulate, making only inarticulate noises, and 
these with extreme difficulty ; even ' Yes ' or ' No,' 
were said in the strangest manner, so as to hardly 
be understood. 

" He often fell into a passion at not being able 
to articulate; he ground his teeth, sighed greatly, 
continually blew bubbles of saliva from his mouth, 
and moved his tongue. 

" The movements of the disease had lessened, so 
as not to be in proportion to his extreme muscular 
debility. He could use neither hand for any pur- 
pose, and scarcely ever raised the right. He was 
low-spirited and fretful, and often cried almost 
without a cause. 

" His tongue was clean and moist, his appetite 
good, and his bowels in the most healthy condition; 
his pulse 74. 

" He cried sadly at being brought to me, think- 
ing I should give him loads of physic to swallow, 
and blister him, as others had done. I mesmerized 
him for half an hour by vertical passes before the 
face. 

" He sat well supported in an easy chair, his head 
on his breast, but he sat so quietly in comparison with 
his usual state that his mother noticed it. 

" He was treated in the same way daily until the 
15th of February, when he was mesmerized for 
the last time." 

Says the doctor in conclusion : 

" Nothing could be more decisive of the power 
of Mesmerism than this case. The disease was 



120 Vital Magnetis7n. 

getting worse and worse at the time I began. An 
effect was visible in a few days ; the benefit stead- 
ily increased, and from being a slobbering, idiot- 
looking child, his head hanging on one side, unable 
to speak, or stand unsupported, in three weeks he 
could stand easily, and walk five miles. 

" Not a particle of medicine was given after the 
first day. The true gratitude of the boy and his 
mother was delightful." 



DR. BRAID S EXPERIENCE. 

Mr. Braid, a celebrated surgeon of Manchester, 
England, to whom Dr. Carpenter refers in so com- 
plimentary a manner in his physiological works 
(who is also mentioned by Dr. Brown-Sequard in 
his lectures upon nervous force), devised a new 
method of exciting the primary magnetic condi- 
tion, or the state of expectant attention. Mr. Braid 
styled his method " Hypnotism ;" and this appella- 
tion seems to suit some writers better than Magne- 
tism or Mesmerism. Mr. Braid gives a history of 
a large number of cases treated by him, covering 
the senses of hearing sight and smell. Diseased 
conditions cured of tic-doloreux, spinal complaints, 
paralysis, rheumatism, both acute and chronic, ner- 
vous headache, epilepsy, &c. 

We will quote a case or two under Mr. Braid's 
practice : 



Typical Cases. 121 

" Master J. B., thirteen years of age, was sud- 
denly attacked with chilliness and pain all over his 
body, on the evening of the 30th of March last. 

" I was called to attend him the following day, 
when I considered he had got a febrile attack from 
cold, and prescribed accordingly. 

" Next day, however, it had assumed a very dif- 
ferent aspect. I now found I had got a severe case 
of opisthotonos to deal with. 

" The head and pelvis were rigidly drawn back, 
the body forming an arch, and the greatest force 
could not succeed in straightening it, or bring the 
head forward. 

" While the spasm never relaxed entirely, it fre- 
quently became much aggravated, when the head 
was so much drawn back as to seriously impede 
respiration. The legs were also sometimes fixed 
spasmodically. The effect of the spasm in obstruct- 
ing respiration and hurrying the circulation was 
great, and seemed to place the patient in great jeo- 
pardy. The pulse was never less than 150, but dur- 
ing the paroxysm was considerably increased. 

" It was evident I had got a most formidable case 
to contend with, and that no time ought to be lost. 
I therefore determined to try the power of Hypnot- 
ism, well knowing how generally such cases end 
fatally under ordinary treatment. 

" He was quite sensible, and the only difficulty 
in getting him to comply with my instructions 
arose from the recurrence of the severe spasmodic 
attacks. 



122 Vital Magnetism. 

" In a very few minutes, however, I succeeded in 
reducing the spasm so that his head could be car^ 
ried forward to the perpendicular, his breathing 
was relieved, his pulse considerably diminished, 
and I left him in a state of comparative comfort. 
In about two and a half hours after I visited him 
again, accompanied by my friend Dr. Cochrane. 

" The spasms had recurred, but by no means 
with the same violence. Dr. Cochrane had no 
difficulty in recognizing the disease ; but he did 
not believe any means could save such a case. He 
had never seen a patient hypnotized until that after- 
noon, and watched my experiment with much in- 
terest and attention. He seemed much and agree- 
ably surprised by the extraordinary influence which 
an agency apparently so simple exerted over such 
a case. The pupil of the eye was speedily dilated, 
as if under the influence of belladonna ; the muscu- 
lar spasm relaxed, and in a few minutes he was 
calmly asleep." In conclusion Mr. Braid says : " I 
feel quite confident that without the aid of Hypnot- 
ism this patient would have died." 

Another case of spasmodic affection — that of Miss 
Collins, of Newark. Her father writes : 

" My daughter, sixteen years of age, had been 
afflicted for six months with a rigid contraction of 
the muscles of the left side of the neck to so great 
a degree that it would have been impossible to in- 
sert an ordinary card between the ear and shoul- 
ders, so close was their contact ; and consequently 
she was rapidly being malformed. She had had the 



Typical Cases. 123 

best advice to be procured in the country, and I had 
taken her to London with a written statement of the 
treatment previously employed, and had the opinion 
of Sir Benjamin Brodie, who approved of what had 
been done, but gave no hope of speedy relief. 

" Hearing of Mr. Braid, surgeon of St. Peter's 
Square, Manchester, and with a letter written to 
that gentleman by Mr. Mayo, of London, I went 
with her, by the advice of Dr. Chawner, who, in- 
deed, accompanied us, and placed her under the 
care of Mr. Braid on Thursday evening, the 24th of 
March. In less than a minute after that gentleman 
began to fix her attention, she was in a mesmeric 
(neurohypnotic) slumber, and in another minute 
was partially cataleptic. Mr. Braid then, without 
awaking her, and consequently without giving her 
any pain, placed her head upright, which I firmly 
believe could not, by any possibility, have been done 
five minutes before, without disruption of the mus- 
cles, or the infliction of some serious injury ; and, 
I am thankful to say, it not only continues straight, 
but she has perfect control over the muscles of the 
neck. A nervous motion of the head, to which she 
had been subject after her return from Manchester, 
has entirely ceased and she is at present in excel- 
lent health. 

"At Dr. Chawner's suggestion, she was fre- 
quently watched while asleep, but not the slightest 
relaxation was observed in the contracted muscles." 
(Signed) 

James Collins. 



124 Vital Magnetism. 

Mr. Braid adds : " After the lapse of a year, Mr. 
Collins was so kind as to write and inform me that 
his daughter continued in perfect health, with 
complete control of the muscles of the neck," 



PAINLESS AMPUTATION OF THE THIGH, &C. 

The Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of 
London present an " account of a case of success- 
ful amputation of the thigh, during the magnetic 
state, without the knowledge of the patient, in 
the District Hospital of Wellow, Nottingham- 
shire/' 

The operator was W. Topham, of the Middle 
Temple : W. Squire, Ward Surgeon of Wellow 
Hall. 

The patient was a laborer, six feet high, and for- 
ty-two years of age, named James Wombell. Full 
details were published at the time (November 22, 
1842). 

Dr. Storer reports the case of Mary Ann Lakin, 
of Leicester. She had been suffering from exten- 
sive disease of the knee-joint, which became so 
alarming as to render amputation necessary, even 
to prolong her existence. 

The operation was performed by Mr. Tosswell, 
surgeon : the magnetizer was Mr. J. Collins. 

She remained during the operation almost mo- 
tionless, so that there was no occasion to support 
her on the table, as is usual on these occasions. 



Typical Cases. 125 

" On being put to bed after the operation, she 
was de-magnetized, and asked what she had felt. 
She said she had been dreaming that a person had 
tied something tightly round her sound leg, and 
that she felt angry, and gave him a kick, to make 
him desist. Her features did not change from the 
calmness first noted, and the witness, a surgeon, 
declares his belief that the girl, through magnetism, 
avoided the horrors of the operation." 

It would be impossible to give a synopsis in this 
brief work of the hundreds of cases of painless sur- 
gery recorded by even one practitioner, Dr Es- 
daile, in India, whose interesting work on Mesmer- 
ism has already been alluded to. 

One or two will exhibit sufficiently the complete 
character of the anaesthetic effects. 

" June 3d. — Teencowrie Paulit, a peasant, aged 
forty, was admitted to the hospital. Two years 
ago, he began to suffer from a tumor in the antrum 
maxillarej the tumor had pushed up the orbit of 
the eye, filled up the nose, passed into the throat, 
and caused an enlargement of the neck. 

" I was very desirous to reduce him to a state of 
insensibility before operating upon him, and for the 
last fortnight my assistants have all perseveringly 
tried it, but without inducing sleep even. Indeed, 
from the tumor obstructing his throat, he has hard- 
ly slept for five months. Having ascertained that 
he was easier when sitting, I took him in hand my- 
self, to-day, and entranced him in a chair. In half 
an hour the man was catalepsed, and in a quarter 



126 Vital Magnetism. 

more I performed one of the most severe and pro- 
tracted operations in surgery ; the man was totally 
unconscious. 

" I put a long knife in at the corner of the mouth, 
and brought the point out over the cheek bone di- 
viding the parts between ; from this I pushed it 
through the skin at the inner corner of the eye, and 
dissected the cheek back to the nose. 

" The pressure of the tumor had caused the ab- 
sorption of the anterior wall of the antrum, and on 
pressing my fingers between it and to the bones, 
it burst, and a shocking gush of blood and brain- 
like matter followed. 

" The tumor extended as far as my fingers could 
reach under the orbit and cheek-bone, and passed 
into the gullet — having destroyed the bones and 
partition of the nose. No one touched the man, 
and I turned his head into any position I desired, 
without resistance, and there it remained till I 
wished to mbve it again ; when the blood accumu- 
lated, I bent his head forward, and it ran from his 
mouth as from a spout. The man never moved nor 
showed signs of life, except an occasional indis- 
tinct moan ; but when I threw back his head, and 
passed my fingers into his throat to detach the 
mass in that direction, the stream of blood was 
directed into his windpipe, and some instinctive 
effort was necessary for existence ; he therefore 
coughed, and leaned forward to get rid of the 
blood ; and I had supposed he then awoke. 

"The operation was by this time finished, and he 



Typical Cases. 127 

was laid on the floor to have his face sewed up, 
and while this was doing, he for the first time 
opened his eyes. 

" June 4th. — The man declares, by the most em- 
phatic pantomime, that he felt no pain while in the 
chair, and that when he awoke, I was engaged in 
sewing up his face, on the floor ; so that the cough- 
ing and forward movement to get rid of the blood, 
were involuntary, instinctive efforts to prevent suf- 
focation. 

"June 6th. — The dressings were undone to-day, 
and the whole extent of the wounds in the face has 
united completely by the first intention. He is out 
of all danger, and can speak plainly ; he declares 
most positively that he knew nothing that had 
been done to him till he awoke on the floor, and 
found me sewing up his cheek." 

Here is a statement from himself, translated 
from Bengalee : 

" For two years I have suffered under this dis- 
ease, and scarcely slept for five months. 

"On the 19th of May, I came to the Imambarah 
Hospital, and three or four persons tried to make me 
sleep, but all in vain. On the 3d of June, Dr. Esdaile 
having kindly undertaken my case, with a great deal 
of labor, made me sleep, and took something out of 
my cheek, which at that time I did not perceive. 

"After the operation I did not sleep for two 
nights, but after the third day I have slept as usual. 
" Teencowrie Paulit, 

of Madra." 



128 Vital Magnetism. 

If patients are fortunate enough to sleep some 
time after the operation, they not only feel no pain 
on waking, but none subsequently even. 

Dr. Esdaile records the removal of a large num- 
ber of tumors in addition to the above, of which 
one more specimen will perhaps suffice. 

"Oct. 25th, Gooroochuan Shah, a shop-keeper, 
aged 40. He has a ' monster tumor ' which pre- 
vents him from moving; its great weight, and his 
having used it for a writing desk for many years, 
has pressed it into its present shape. His pulse is 
weak, and his feet cedematous, which will make it 
very hazardous to attempt its removal; but with 
such an appendage life is literally a burden. He 
became insensible on the fourth day of mesmerzing, 
and was drawn with the mattress to the end of the 
bed (my usual mode of proceeding); two men then 
held up the tumor in a sheet, pulling it forward at 
the same time, and, in the presence of Mr. Bennett, 
I removed it by a circular incision, expedition being 
his only safety. The rush of venous blood was 
great, but fortunately soon arrested; and after 
tying the last vessel, the mattress w*as again pulled 
back upon the bed with him upon it, and at this 
moment he awoke. 

" The loss of blood had been so great that he 
immediately fell into a fainting state, and it took a 
good while to revive him. On recovering he said 
that he awoke while the mattress was being pulled 
back, and that nothing had disturbed him. The 
tumor weighed eighty pounds, and is probably the 



Typical Cases. 129 

largest ever removed from the human body. I 
think it extremely likely that if the circulation had 
been hurried by pain and struggling, or if the 
shock to the system had been increased by bodily 
and mental anguish, the man would have bled to 
death, or never have rallied from the effects of the 
operation. 

" But, the sudden loss of blood was all he had to 
contend against; and though in so weak a condition, 
he has surmounted this, and gone on very well. 

" Dec. 1st. — Has been allowed to go home at his 
own request ; the wound is filling up slowly, for 
want of integument." 

No single man has done so much, practically, in 
Magnetic-Surgery as Dr. Esdaile, and as his prac- 
tice is so often quoted by contemporary and later 
writers, we would again urge our readers to ex- 
amine his very valuable work. His chief practice 
was surgery ; but he also gives many other cures by 
magnetic treatment, among which are enumerated 
Nervous Headache, Tic-douloureux, Spasmodic 
Colic, Acute Inflammation of the Eye, Chronic 
ditto, Convulsions, Rheumatism, Lumbago, Scia- 
tica, Pain in the Crural Nerve, Palsy of Limbs, dit- 
to of half of the body, and many other forms of 
disease cured by this agency. He says, further, 
as a result of his experience : 

"In chronic inflammation it is a useful discu- 
tient, gently stimulating the nerves and capillary 
vessels of the part to more healthy action ; and for 
this purpose local magnetism is only required. 



130 Vital Magnetism. 

11 The chronic exhibition of magnetism as a gen- 
eral tonic in diseases of debility promises to be 
of great service, especially in functional derange- 
ment of the nervous system, and I am hopeful that 
we have at last got a direct nervous remedy, 
hitherto a ' desideratum,' in medicine. 

" In palsy from weakness of the nerves, it prom- 
ises to assist us greatly, and Dr. Elliottson has re- 
corded many cures of cases he could not have man- 
aged before. All who venture to confess the truth 
to themselves know how miserably impotent for 
the cure of palsy and nervous diseases generally 
are the medical means hitherto employed. If we 
succeed, we often cannot tell why, and the connec- 
tion of cause and effect is very uncertain. 

" But in the chronic treatment of palsy, by mag- 
netism alone, the patient often feels and shows early 
and continued improvement under the action of 
this natural remedy ; and we cannot refuse to be- 
lieve that it is the exciting cause ; we must believe 
that it is, or own that it is a spontaneous cure of 
a commonly incurable disease ! But both the 
practitioner and patient must remember, that Mes- 
merism is no exception to the general rule, that a 
chronic disease requires a chronic cure. Much 
patience and labor will be required in the mes- 
meric treatment of paralytic affections." 

So wrote this honest, frank, outspoken physi- 
cian. His powerful statement of thoroughly at- 
tested facts thrilled all Europe, and this painless 
surgery which he practiced and endorsed would to- 



Typical Cases. 131 

day be the reliance of the profession, were it not 
for the almost contemporaneous introduction of 
ether and chloroform, which surgeons find more 
convenient to administer, preferring the modicum of 
risk which attaches to it, to the delays which mag- 
netism would involve. 

But, assuming that convenience justifies this 
position, there are, after all, some lives that hang 
upon threads so slender, that it is positively impos- 
sible to administer either of the above-named drugs, 
where magnetism might be used with perfect con- 
fidence, and an operation otherwise impossible 
could be safely attempted. False professional 
pride, recklessness, ignorance or stupidity will alone 
prevent the frequent use of an agent so effectual, 
and proved and admitted so safe, as vital magne- 
tism. 



ENGLISH PRACTITIONERS AND ADVOCATES. 

As early as 1848 Mr. Sandby, in his interesting 
work upon the subject, says : "There is hardly a 
county in England where it is not now practiced. 
From York to the Isle of Wight — from Dover to 
Plymouth, there can be produced a chain of evi-* 
dence and a list of cures. * * * 

" Mr. Atkinson has been eminently successful in 
his treatment of numerous diseases, some of which 
generally defy all human skill, among which were 
three cases of that fearful malady, tic-douloureux; 



132 Vital Magnetism. 

one of which was of ten years' standing, and the other 
two of several years' duration. He has also cured 
many cases of fits, of hysteria and want of sleep, 
and of those determined nervous and sick head- 
aches, which seldom yield to remedial action ; he 
has been equally successful in various acute nerv- 
ous pains, and contractions of limbs, asthma, fever, 
long standing cough, affections of the heart and 
spine, injured sight, deafness, melancholia, rheuma- 
tism, tooth-ache, indigestion, and functional ob- 
structions." Mr. Atkinson was one of the best 
early practitioners. 

Mr. Chenevix, a well-known name in the literary 
world, and a man of scientific training, was also a 
very successful operator, and at the time of his sud- 
den death by acute disease, had in preparation a 
work demonstrating his own experience upon some 
442 patients. He says: "There was hardly one 
instance where disease existed, that relief was not 
procured." 

" He reports the cure of a case of epilepsy and 
spasmodic pain of six years' standing in twenty- 
one treatments. He succeeded in three other cases 
of a similar character completely, and procured 
immense relief in eight others. He also cured 
seven cases of worms, and was of great service to 
several inmates of the Wakefield Lunatic Asylum." 

Colonel Sir Thomas Wiltshire, commanding at 
Chatham, was also an eminent practitioner. 

Earl Stanhope was also a practitioner, and a gen- 
tleman of great Christian kindness and philan- 



Typical Cases, 133 

thropy. He notes many cases of cure in his own 
experience. 

Capt. Valiant, of Chatham, was a very powerful 
and successful operator, as was also Mr. Baldock, 
who found it very successful in palpitations of the 
heart and severe headaches; and amongst other 
cures he reports that of Robert Flood, of Caister 
in Lincolnshire, who suffered for several years from 
disease in one of his kidneys. 

He had been under the care of several eminent 
physicians, and. was finally admitted to the hospital 
in London; his pains were so acute that he could 
not leave his bed until the day was far advanced, 
and even then he was compelled to recline several 
times before retiring for the night. Mr. Baldock 
restored him to health, by magnetic treatment, in 
three months. 

Mr. Majendie, of Hedingham Castle, Essex, was 
equally prominent and successful. 

Mr. Topham of the Temple was also a very prom- 
inent operator, and was the magnetizer in the case 
of Wombell, whose thigh was painlessly amputa- 
ted; and he was very successful in the treatment of 
Epileptic fits. 

Mr. Thompson, of Fairfield House, near York, 
was a famous operator, and gives a great many 
astonishing cures. 

He mentions a child nine years of age, who had 
a diseased knee of a scrofulous character, from 
which he suffered " intense agony, was unable to 
rest day or night, with loss of appetite, great in- 



134 Vital Magnetism. 

flammation extending above the knee, the knee enor- 
mously enlarged, with extensive suppuration on the 
inside of the knee, a high state of fever at the time, 
with a hectic flush upon his cheeks, with quickness 
of breathing, and a short cough." By local mag- 
netizing the symptoms were ameliorated in half an 
hour, the child became still and calm, and smilingly 
described a "heat coming out of Mr. Thompson's 
fingers," which had taken the pain away. The 
child rapidly improved, absorption of the matter 
took place, and in a month's time he was able to 
use the limb; sleep was not induced in this case. 

In another case treated by Mr. Thompson, a gen- 
tleman had been suffering for nine consecutive days 
from severe rheumatic fever, with acute pain in the 
shoulders, arms, hands, loins, legs and knees; ex- 
cessive fever, profuse night-sweats, caused by the 
agony of pain. 

The following is the patient's description of the 
magnetic treatment: 

"In less than twenty minutes you had nearly 
charmed away all the pain and restored warmth 
and feeling to my feet. You then put me to sleep; 
the delightful sensation of that sleep, after such 
extreme pain, I can scarcely describe. When you 
awakened me, I felt like another person. The 
fever was reduced, and the pain was gone. In four 
days I was down stairs. Every time you mesmer- 
ized me I felt as it were a new life (pp. 151 Sand- 
by 's Mes.)." 

Captain Anderson, of the Royal Marines, a resi- 



Typical Cases. 135 

dent of Chelmsford, another powerful magnetizer, 
reported many cases: — 

One of Mrs. Raymond, residing at Chelmsford, 
who had suffered for nine years from spinal com- 
plaint, being confined to her sofa, and unable to 
be moved day and night ; she had also lost the 
use of her voice. Her sufferings were dreadful. 
Blisters, caustic plasters, leeches, setons, and me- 
dication endless had been tried with no substantial 
benefit. 

At first this afflicted lady laughed at the idea of 
being relieved by such apparently inadequate 
means ; but having finally consented to give it a 
trial at the hands of Captain Anderson, she states 
her experience in these words : 

" I am now able to walk out daily, alone and un- 
assisted. I am regaining my speech, and I am free 
from pain, sleep soundly, and take no medicine, 
and am now seldom mesmerized." (For full par- 
ticulars of this case, see the Zoist, vol. 2, p. 82.) 

Dr. Engledeu, of Southsea, practiced it exten- 
sively in his profession, and has been a very warm 
advocate of its merits. 

Mr. Weeks, & surgeon at Sandwich, devoted a 
large portion of his time to the judicious applica- 
tion of magnetism, and says, after two years' prac- 
tice, that "its use has been demonstrated after 
the usual modes of treatment, and in some instances 
abundance of quackery to boot, had utterly failed, 
and rendered the case more inveterate and distress- 
ing." Among the cases he mentions, are some of 



136 Vital Magnetism, 

dyspepsia, habitual constipation, paralysis, slug- 
gish condition of the hepatic system, hypochon- 
driasis, muscular contractions, stubborn and other- 
wise hopeless cases of rheumatism, local pains, and 
severe forms of neuralgia, cases of general languor 
and debility, without manifest cause ; as also of 
deafness, and painless surgery, besides several af- 
fections of an anomalous character. ' 

Mr. Weeks has ranked high, with an immense 
practice. Mr. Prideaux, of Southampton, is an- 
other great practical magnetist, and reports several 
cases of St. Vitus' dance, treated in his practice by 
this agency. He is a medical man, and bears high 
testimony in its favor. 

Mr. Janson, of Pennsylvania Park, President of 
the Exeter Literary Society, a gentleman of high 
literary attainments, bears valuable testimony, and 
has met with marked success in the treatment of 
tic-douloureux. 

Mr. Holm, of Highgate, a gentleman of philan- 
thropic character, says that he has found it a very 
efficacious remedy in epilepsy, rheumatism, brain 
fever, head-aches, and many neuralgic disorders. 

Mr. Charles Childs, of Bungay, surgeon, says : 
'■ I have practiced Mesmerism about four years ; in 
this period I have proved its unquestionably beneficial 
results in several of the most afflictive maladies." Sev- 
eral of his cases are published, including many in 
painless surgery. (See Zoist, p. 36, vol. 3.) A large 
number of cases are also credited in the same journal 
to Mr. Chandler, surgeon, of Rotherhithe, amongst 



Typical Cases. 137 

which is a rapid and perfect cure of a case of in- 
sanity, when all other remedies had failed. 

Mr. Purland, of Mortimer street, Cavendish 
Square, has practiced the art with great success and 
reports a large variety of cases in his practice, 
amongst which are asthma, hysteria, lameness, 
deafness, &c. 

Mr. Boyton, Surgeon of Wattington, in Oxford- 
shire, is a gentleman of skill and reputation in the 
profession; after describing many cures, he says : 
"// strengthens the nervous system, improves the di- 
gestion, and tranquilizes the mind." 

Dr. Wilson, of the Middlesex Hospital, well 
known through his publications on the subject, 
reports a case of insanity cured by Magnetism. 

Dr. Ashburner, of Grosvenor street, London, 
late physician to the Middlesex Hospital, Dr. Sto- 
rer, of Bristol, Dr. Simpson of York, Dr. Arnott of 
Edinburgh, Mr. Johnston, surgeon, 22 Saville Rowe, 
Sweden, have published remarkable cases. 

Mr. Newnham, surgeon, of Farnham, the author 
of "Human Magnetism," was requested to write a 
paper against the practice of Magnetism, and was 
furnished with materials for the purpose; but in- 
vestigation soon convinced him of the value of the 
power, and he became one of its stanchest advo- 
cates. 

Mr. Sandby refers to Symes of Grosvenor street, 
London; J. Hands, Duke street; Decimus Hands, 
Thayer street; Morgan, Bedford Row; Flinthoff, 
Great Tichfield street; Clarke, Kingsland Road; 



138 Vital Magnetism. 

Case, of Fareham; Adams, of Lymington; Choter, 
of Norwich; Weddell of Scarborough; Nixon, of 
Wigton; J. B. Parker, of Exeter; Sargeant, of Rei- 
gate, Surrey; Luxmore, of Alphington, Exeter; 
Hollings, of Leicester; Vivian, of Woodfield, Tor- 
quay; Briggs, of Nottingham Place ; Mulholland, 
of Walsall, who reduced a wen of eleven years 
standing, the size of a goose egg, so completely, 
that it requires astute observation to detect it, 
Stenson, of Northampton; Summers, of Chatham, 
who acted successfully upon a case of obstinate 
hernia, by Magnetism; Brindley, of Stourbridge; 
Tubbs, of Upwell Isle, in Cambridgeshire, with a 
very large practice and a long list of remarkable 
cures; Dr. Owens, of Stourbridge; with a host of 
non-professional advocates. 

"Here then," says Mr. Sandby, " is a train of 
witnesses consisting of men of ability, and honor- 
able standing, from whose reports the facts of 
magnetism might be confidently predicated, and 
this list might be swelled to any extent. 

"What an amount have we here of happiness 
conferred ! What a mass of pain, of sickness, of 
sorrow, lightened or removed ! Here at length are 
a few pleasing pages in the long sad chapter of 
human life ! Here, at last, is a delightful study for 
the philanthropist and the Christian." 

To a far greater extent than in Great Britain has 
its application been made on the continent ; and 
Dr. Georget, the celebrated French physiologist, 
justly remarks of the character of its advocates : 



Typical Cases. 139 

"It is a very astonishing thing that animal magne- 
tism is not even known by name among the ignor- 
ant classes ; it is among the enlightened ranks that it 
finds support, learned men, naturalists, physicians, and 
philosophers." 



PREJUDICE, IGNORANCE AND CHARLATANRY NO LON- 
GER PERMISSIBLE. 

The mass of evidence by which this practice 
stands fortified to day, has not been accumulated, 
however, without hard blows being exchanged be- 
tween its advocates and opponents ; the battle 
waged furiously for more than thirteen years, but 
there could be but one issue between fact and ignor- 
ant opposition; and simple prejudice ultimately 
was compelled to give way before the crushing 
array of .indisputable evidence in favor of magnetic 
treatment. In a vast variety of diseased condi- 
tions, especially in the field of nervous disorders 
its results were most astonishing. 

Many men were hunted as wild beasts for acting 
up to their convictions ; notably, Dr. Elliottson, 
who, in consequence of the narrow-minded policy 
pursued by other members of the faculty, was in- 
duced to withdraw his name from the Professor- 
ship of the University of London, because of their 
opposition to the practice in that institution. The 
patients themselves were willing recipients, and 
the most signal benefits were being daily experi- 



140 Vital Magnetism. 

enced, and the Academies of Paris and Berlin had 
not thought the question beneath their notice. 

This outrage, however, was not accomplished 
without the strenuous opposition of four members 
of the council, comprising the names of Lord 
Brougham, Sir L. Goldsmith, Mr. Tooke, and Mr. 
Bishop, who placed too high a value upon the stand- 
ing and character of Dr. Elliottson to let this un- 
generous action pass without a protest. The ex- 
perience of Dr. Elliotson was duplicated in many- 
other directions ; but these frantic efforts in oppo- 
sition carried their own defeat, in the final contest. 
Hospitals and infirmaries had to be established in 
the earlier days of investigation for this special prac- 
tice until the wider diffusion of information caused 
its merits to be admitted, and the general practice 
won its way in public estimation to such a degree, 
that this necessity passed away. 

The best physiologists of Europe have long since 
acknowledged the claims of this branch of thera- 
peutics, and to-day can calmly state its merits with- 
out the risk of personal slanderous attacks, which 
is of itself a great gain upon the past, and has 
made its extensive application abroad an easy mat- 
ter, so that its standing is well assured. But how 
stands the practice in our own country? While 
Europe has been ablaze with investigation, we have 
done little ; we have thus escaped much of the bit- 
terness of discussion, and may reap all the advan- 
tages of the practice as the result of other men's 
labors, still, we have lacked the stimulus of this 



Typical Cases. 141 

public agitation, and exhibit a supineness and 
want of enterprise truly amazing, in view of the 
transcendent importance of a subject so vital to 
the welfare of humanity. 

It is true that it has been utilized quite exten- 
sively in this country ; but amongst medical men 
there has been an almost total lack of information 
upon the subject, to characterize it by no stronger 
term, that is very extraordinary. 

There are, doubtless, reasons for this, so far as 
individual action is concerned. In the first place, 
our medical universities have almost totally ignored 
the subject, mainly, it is believed, because of the 
supposed difficulty of carrying it into general 
practice. This has prevented inquiry for its litera- 
ture, which, while so abundant abroad, is scarcely 
to be procured here. France and Germany alone 
have put forth over fourteen hundred publications 
on the subject ; but it is almost impossible to find 
a single volume upon any bookseller's shelves in 
our land treating of vital magnetism. 

Physicians do not hesitate to express their igno- 
rance in regard to it, while they may have a gen- 
eral impression of its benefits. 

But, perhaps the most potent cause of this la«ek 
of information here has arisen from the prejudice 
awakened by the lecturers who, many years since, 
presented upon public platforms, in various forms 
of buffoonery, the psychological phenomena so 
readily induced in a certain class of magnetic se?isi- 
tives. These merely farcical exhibitions have been 



142 Vital Magnetism. 

proclaimed as the usual effects of magnetism, and 
have been so accepted by the public ; and the pub- 
lic being so misinstructed, have scarcely dreamed 
of the serious side of the question, nor of the vast 
interests which were involved in it. 

While such entertainments may not have pro- 
duced physical injury to any one, they have done 
immense mischief by bringing into ridicule what 
should have been guarded most carefully from re- 
proach. The same adverse influences existed, and 
were felt in England, but their effects were largely 
neutralized by the able advocates of the higher 
and grander aspects of this noble science. 

Says Harriet Martineau, in one of her letters : 
c * I believe there is no doubt that the greatest of all 
injuries done to Mesmerism is by its itinerant ad- 
vocates. 

" This appears to be admitted by everybody but 
the itinerants themselves ; and none lament the 
practice so deeply as the higher order of Mesmer- 
ists." 

It is true the blame of this desecration rests with 
the learned men, who ought to have shown them- 
selves wise in relation to a matter so serious, and 
to have taken the investigation into their own 
hands. It is they who are answerable for having 
turned over the subject to the fanatical and the 
vulgar. It is they who have cast this jewel of 
knowledge and power into the lap of the ignorant ; 
and no one can wonder that it is bartered for 
money and notoriety." 



Theorizing. 143 

Every able writer of those times struck heavy 
blows at the men and their practices, who simply 
made a show of the mental phenomena, and were in- 
competent even to state the higher uses of this force, 
and thus to a great extent the mischief was pre- 
vented in England which lamentably followed in 
this country, for lack of strong friends to intelli- 
gently stand for the truth. 

We are gradually emerging, however, into a bet- 
ter light, and the confident utterances of our best 
physiologists are awakening a spirit of inquiry 
among physicians in medical conventions, and in 
the public mind, which promises valuable results in 
the immediate future. 



XII. 



THEORIZING. 



As I said, my object is not to set up a theory in 
regard to the origin or causation of magnetic 
phenomena, a rock upon which most writers have 
split. 

The world has been deluged with theories ; and 
if my readers would pursue a phantom I will place 



144 Vital Magnetism. 

them in possession of sources of information ; but 
this is not the role which I have prescribed for my- 
self. 

Vital Magnetism is a science based eminently on 
facts, not on opinions ; and these are as uniform 
and as well authenticated as facts in physiology, 
or the phenomena of Electricity, Light, Heat, or 
Mineral and Terrestrial Magnetism. On these facts 
it rests its claims for consideration, adoption, and 
general utilization. 

As Miss Martineau has well said, in pleading for 
its consideration, when inconsiderate friends de- 
manded a theory from her : 

" ' Tell me what Mesmerism is, first, and then I 
will attend to it,' has been said to me, and has been 
said to many others, who, declaring Mesmerism to 
be true, have no theory as to its nature — no con- 
jecture as to the scope of its operations. 

" Some ask this in ignorance, others as an eva- 
sion. Wise inquirers will not ask it at all till a 
vast preparatory work has been achieved, which it 
is both unphilosophical and immoral to neglect. 
There are hospitals among us, where it may be as- 
certained whether insensibility to pain can be pro- 
duced. 

" There are sufferers in every one's neighborhood 
whose capability of recovery by Mesmerism may 
be tested. 

"Let experience, carefully obtained, be wisely 
collected and philosophically communicated. 

" If found untrue, Mesmerism may then be ' ex- 



Theorizing. 145 

ploded,' which it can never be by mere ignorant 
scorn and levity. 

" If true, the world will be so much the better. 
When we consider that no physician in Europe 
above forty years of age, when Harvey lived, be- 
lieved in the circulation of the blood, we shall not 
look for any philosophical inquiry into Mesmerism 
from established members of the profession, whose 
business it is to attend to it ; but happily, the 
young never fail. There always is a new genera- 
tion rising up to emancipate the world from the 
prejudices of the last (while . originating new 
ones), and there are always a few disinterested, in- 
trepid, contemplative spirits, cultivating the calm 
wisdom and bringing up the established convic- 
tions of the olden time, as material for the enthusi- 
asm of the new, who may be relied on for main- 
taining the truth till they joyfully find that it has 
become too expansive for their keeping. The truth 
in question is safe, whether it be called Mesmer- 
ism, or by another and better name. 

" Everybody interested in a great discovery is 
under a strong temptation to theorize too soon; and 
those who oppose, or do not understand Mesmer- 
ism, are forever trying to get us to theorize prema- 
turely. From the first day that my experiment was 
divulged, to the present, the attempt has been re- 
newed till the application to me to announce a 
theory has become so ludicrously common, that I 
am in no danger of falling into the trap. I have 
had not only to refuse to propose even a hypothe- 



146 Vital Magnetism. 

sis, but to guard my language so carefully, as that 
by no pretense of an inference could any be as- 
cribed to me. 

" I could wish that all who, like myself, knew 
personally but a few facts (however clear), were as 
careful about this as the occasion requires. Their 
notions of a transmission of a fluid, electric or other 
— of a conditional excitement in human beings, 
of a power of control or stimulus of their own vital 
functions — of the mesmeric power residing in the 
will of the mesmerist, or in the imagination or will 
of the patient; of some sympathetic function, ex- 
press but obscure, and assigned to some unexplored 
region of the brain — these notions and many more, 
may each suit the phenomena which have come un- 
der the notice of the expounders; but no one of 
them will hold good with all the facts that are es- 
tablished. 

" The phenomena are so various, that it seems to 
me most improbable that we can yet be near the 
true theory, to say nothing of what is very ob- 
vious — that the suppositions offered are little but 
words." 

These remarks of Miss Martineau apply with 
equal force to-day, for we are no nearer the solu- 
tion of the problem of causation in regard to this 
human force than we are of the many other great 
natural forces by which we are surrounded, and 
which men have almost ceased to speculate about. 

For the same reasons I have entirely ignored in 
this volume the so-called "higher class" of mental 



Theorizing. 147 

or psychological phenomena induced often-times 
in magnetic sensitives ; these matters are very in- 
teresting, but I have failed to see the practical re- 
lation between somnambulism, clairvoyance, intro- 
vision, pre-vision, ecstasy, phreno-Mesmerism, mind 
reading, &c, and the use of magnetism as a healing 
remedy. It is evident that the discussion of these 
uncertain and variable phenomena by most of the 
writers on vital magnetism, has bewildered, con- 
fused and oftentimes disgusted seekers after the 
true practical points involved in the application of 
magnetism in the treatment of disease. Even phy- 
sicians have been led off from the real practical is- 
sue by these exciting and bewildering questions, 
and in giving the results of their investigations, 
they have mixed up moral, spiritual and religious 
speculations with their statements of facts in re- 
lation to the cure of disease, to such an extent that 
their value has been diminished, and often de- 
stroyed. 

The mental phenomena of magnetism should, in 
my judgment, receive separate investigation and 
statement, and the facts relating thereto should be 
arranged by themselves. My objects are : 

First, to call the attention of physicians to this 
agency for the treatment of many otherwise incu- 
rable forms of disease, and to stimulate investiga- 
tion, and, 

Second, to show anxious sufferers that there is 
the possibility of a happy release both from drugs 
and pain. 



XIII. 



THE TESTIMONY OF TEST. 



There still remains much of misapprehension in 
the average mind, in regard to the supposed scope 
and power of magnetism ; some affect disbelief, 
while others admit the facts, but timidly appre- 
hend dangers, moral, spiritual and physical, which, 
do not exist, or at least not to the extent that weak 
and superstitious persons suppose. 

There being no public attacks in our day against 
the practice and use of vital magnetism as a cura- 
tive power, we do not hear, except in a casual way, 
of these foolish fears and apprehensions ; but they 
do exist ; and to meet these objections, the argu- 
ments being precisely the same as those used thirty 
or forty years ago, let us see how Miss Martineau 
met the objections, for her opinions and experiences 
were based upon personal knowledge, and never 
lose their freshness or application. 

She says : " I have less sympathy with those who 
throw down their facts before the world, and then 
despise all those who will not be in haste to take 
them up than with some I know of, who would 
seriously rather suffer to any extent, than have re- 
course to relief, which they believed unauthorized ; 



The Testimony of Test. 149 

who would rather that a mystery remained sacred 
than have it divulged for their own benefit ; who 
tell me to my face that they would rather see me 
sent back to my couch of pain than witness any 
tampering with the hidden things of Providence. 

" There is a sublime rectitude of sentiment here, 
which commands and wins one's reverence and 
sympathy ; and if the facts of the history and con- 
dition of Mesmerism could bear out the sentiment, 
no one would more cordially respond to it than I — 
no one would have been more scrupulous about 
procuring recovery by such means — no one would 
have recoiled with more fear and disgust from the 
work of making known what I have experienced 
and learned. 

" But I am persuaded that a knowledge of exist- 
ing facts clears up the duty of the case, so as to 
prove that the sentiment must, while preserving 
all its veneration and tenderness, take a new direc- 
tion, for the honor of God and the safety of man. 

" As for the frequent objection brought against 
inquiry into Mesmerism, that there should be no 
countenance of an influence which gives human 
beings such power over one another, I really think 
a moment's reflection, and a very slight knowledge 
of Mesmerism, would supply both the answers 
which the objection requires. The power is abroad, 
and ought to be guided and controlled. 

" Next, this is but one addition to the powers we 
have over one another already ; and a far more 
slow and difficult one than are many which are 



150 Vital 

safely enough possessed. Every apothecary's shop 
is full of deadly drugs ; every workshop is full of 
deadly weapons ; wherever we go, there are plenty 
of people who could knock us down, rob and mur- 
der us ; wherever we live, there are plenty of peo- 
ple who could defame and ruin us. 

"Why do they not? Because moral considera- 
tions deter them. 

" Then bring the same moral considerations to 
bear on the subject of Mesmerism. 

" It is a mistake to suppose that Mesmerism can be 
used at will to strike down victims, helpless and 
unconscious, as laudanum does, except in cases of 
excessive susceptibility from disease ; cases which 
are of course under proper ward. The concurrence 
of two parties is needful in the first place, which is 
not the case in the administration of narcotics ; 
and then the practice is very uncertain in its results 
in most single occasions ; and again, in the major- 
ity of instances, it appears that the intellectual and 
moral powers are more, and not less, vigorous than 
in the ordinary state. 

"As far as I have any means of judging, the 
highest faculties are seen in their utmost perfection 
during the mesmeric sleep; the innocent are strong- 
er in their rectitude than ever, rebuking levity, 
reproving falsehood and flattery, and indignantly 
refusing to tell secrets, or to say or do anything 
they ought not. The volitions of the mesmerist 
may actuate the movements of the patient's limbs, 
and suggest the material of his ideas, but they 






The Testimony of Test. 151 

seem unable to touch his morale. In this state the 
morale appears supreme, as it is rarely found in 
the ordinary condition. 

" And now one word of respectful and sympathiz- 
ing accost to those reverent and humble spirits who 
painfully question men's right to exercise faculties 
whose scope is a new region of insight and fore- 
sight. They ask whether to use these faculties be 
not to encroach on holy ground, to trespass on the 
precincts of the future and higher life. May I in- 
quire of these, in reply, what they conceive to be 
the divinely appointed boundary of our knowledge 
and our powers ? Can they establish, or indicate, 
any other boundary than the limit of the knowl- 
edge and powers themselves? Has not the attempt 
to do so failed from age to age ? 

" Is it not the most remarkable feature of the 
progress of Time that, in handing over the future 
unto the past, he transmutes its material, inces- 
santly and without pause, converting what truth 
was mysterious, fearful, impious to glance at, into 
that which is safe, beautiful and beneficent to con- 
template and use; a clearly consecrated gift from 
the Father of all to the children who seek the light 
of his countenance? 

" Where is his pleasure to be ascertained but in 
the ascertainment of what he gives and permits, 
in the proof and verification of what powers he has 
bestowed on us, and what knowledge he has placed 
within our reach ? While regarding with shame 
all pride of intellect, and with fear the presump- 



152 Vital Magnetism. 

tion of ignorance, I deeply feel that the truest hu- 
mility is evinced by those who most simply accept 
and use the talents placed in their hands; and that 
the most childlike dependence upon the Creator 
appear in those who most fearlessly apply the 
knowledge he discloses to the furtherance of that 
great consecrated object, the welfare of the family 
of man." 

These moderate, tolerant and intelligent views 
which I have quoted from this gifted .woman's 
writings, were published thirty years ago in the 
Athc7ieum, and are presented with a peculiar charm 
and forcible directness. 

Thirty years of experience confirmed the truth 
of these utterances, and failed to develop the dan- 
gers which superstitious objectors anticipated and 
predicted. 

Among the most graceful writers on the subject 
is the Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend of Trinity 
Hall, Cambridge, England, a very scholarly gentle- 
man, who published in 1844 his work entitled Facts 
in Mesmerism^ heretofore quoted from. Mr. Towns- 
hend's researches were mainly in the realm of men- 
tal phenomena, and upon this branch of the subject 
he will be found as clear and interesting as any 
other writer. 

Among other gentlemen of scientific attainments 
who certified to Mr. Townshend's facts and power, 
was Professor Agassiz, who was himself magnetized 
by Mr. Townshend. 

But, while this able writer and investigator de- 



The Testimony of Test. 153 

votes his main efforts to developing psychological 
phenomena, he saw its practical effects, especially 
on the continent, and fully and freely endorsed its 
strongest claims in this direction. He presents a 
beautiful view of its higher moral aspects worth 
quoting. 

His argument will be found in the " notice " to 
the second edition of his " Facts." 

" The metaphysical deductions which may be 
drawn from mesmeric phenomena, have always ap- 
peared to me, in themselves, to constitute a suffi- 
cient and a noble answer to the inquiry: In what 
can Mesmerism contribute to the welfare or knowl- 
edge of man ? 

" The light which this agency throws upon the 
mysteries of our nature, upon some of the pro- 
foundest truths of religion ; the indications which 
it alone presents of a possible separation between 
soul and body, and of the predominating powers of 
the former — must ever vindicate the sincere in- 
quirer into its laws from the charge of trifling with 
an idle subject; granting even that he should con- 
fine himself to half his theme, and decline touching 
upon the relief, which, in a medical point of view, 
Mesmerism is capable of affording to the evils of 
suffering humanity. 

"But it is the peculiar happiness of Mesmerism 
not to be forced to rely upon any one solitary and 
partial claim to notice and consideration. 

" Its roots are cast deeply and extensively into 
the general ground of humanity. 



154 Vital Magnetism. 

" Where the metaphysician leaves it, the man of 
science may take it up; and when Science has 
gathered in its store of valuable facts, illustrative 
of all her noblest theories, it can still afford an 
ample harvest to him who would practically ame- 
liorate the condition of his fellow-beings. 

" If it fail to win the heart of the materialist from 
his barren creed by its revelations of Mind, as the 
only real source of motion — as all, indeed, that can 
be named — Power; — if vainly it preach to the scep- 
tical or the careless, of Truth, Righteousness, and 
Judgment to come — it ought, at least, to recom- 
mend itself to every friend of man by the palpable 
benefits it is calculated to bestow in cases of dis- 
ease, which are either unaffected by, or opposed to, 
the action of other remedies. 

" That this pretension, as we will modestly call 
it, on the part of Mesmerism, to rank at least as a 
means of cure, should not universally prevail to 
win for it a patient and unbiased ttial and exami- 
nation, is indeed a proof of the force of prejudice 
to turn us even from our habitual ways of proceed- 
ing. I can well understand that Mesmerism, 
reasoning of things beyond the tomb, should meet 
with contumely or neglect ; for we seem, indeed, to 
be so constituted that the present and the physical 
lord it over the future and the intangible ; so that 
a power, professing to heal diseases, will interest 
men generally more than the most striking revela- 
tions regarding their moral destiny ; and it may be 
reasonably doubted whether our Redeemer's Ser- 



The Testimony of Test. 155 

mon on the Mount made anything like the impres- 
sion which the healing of the leper, at its foot, pro- 
duced upon the assembled multitudes. But, that 
Mesmerism, proclaiming — "I can cure!" — should 
be coldly or partially received, does, I own, move 
me to wonder. 

" Ordinarily, all that holds out even a hope of re- 
lief to any ailment whatever, whether real or fan- 
cied, is welcomed with a blind rage and stupid 
credulity. Every new name of every old quack 
remedy is certain to evoke a crowd of self-devoted 
persons, who are most ready to try on their own 
poor bodies the efficacy of the nostrum. In the 
very teeth of verdicts that denounce the drug as 
murderous, the fond disciples of a favorite pill will 
yet continue to obey the voice of the inventor, that 
says : ' The more you take the better ' (id est : ' for 
my own pocket ' ) and will greedily swallow the 
favorite boluses by fifties, and by hundreds. 

" In the case of Mesmerism alone, the most 
startling benefits, the most alluring promises, on 
the one side — persecution even, and the anathemas 
of the diplomatized on the other — have failed to 
stimulate the public mind into anything like desire 
or enthusiasm. Perhaps even so, it is well. All 
slowly acquired possessions are the surest, and that i 
which owes nothing to the breath of popular ap- 
plause, may consider itself independent of popular 
fickleness. The part that now remains to the 
friends of Mesmerism is, by truth and sobriety, to 
win their way into the territory of public belief, 



156 Vital Magnetism. 

where every step is grudgingly accorded, and 
gradually to persuade men to their own benefit by 
setting before them unceasing examples of the 
curative powers of the distrusted agency. It is in 
this sphere of its operation especially, that my 
experience has become enlarged ; and as I have 
elsewhere sufficiently insisted on the metaphysical 
importance of Mesmerism, I would here confine 
myself to stating a few facts relative to its remedial 
energy, which have either fallen under my own ob- 
servation or have reached me through unsuspected 
sources. I have watched the effects of mesmeric 
treatment upon a suffering friend, who was dying 
of that most fearful disorder — Lumbar Abscess. 

" Unfortunately, through various hindrances, 
Mesmerism was not resorted to till late in the pro- 
gress of the disease, so that, of course, that it 
should effect a cure was out of the question. It 
should ever be held in remembrance that Mesmer- 
ism does not profess to work miracles. 

"It cannot restore a decayed bone to its integ- 
rity, or re-create a missing part ; but it can benefit, 
even where it cannot save. 

" And how much is it to say of a power — that it is 
remedial even where not curative, and that in cases 
where it fails to re-kindle life, it can smooth the 
passage to the grave, and mitigate the horrors of 
physical pain ! This I have gratefully witnessed in 
the case of my suffering friend. He was at the 
time of the worst part of his illness, residing near 
Inspruck, and was fortunate enough to command the 



The Testimony of Test. 157 

mesmeric services of Dr. Ennemoser, the author of 
several high and useful works on Mesmerism; a man 
whose experience in this science is fully equaled (as 
it ought to be in medical men) by his knowledge 
of therapeutics in general. 

" I have no hesitation in saying, that, under God, 
the life of my friend, R. T., was prolonged, at least, 
two months by the action of Mesmerism. The im- 
provement in all his symptoms, from the date of 
the first experiment, was too marked to be mistaken, 
or to be considered as the result of other causes. 

" At the time the mesmerising was undertaken, 
the patient was in a state of continuous fever, to- 
tally without appetite, and suffering almost con- 
stant pain from thirteen wounds, which were partly 
the result of his disorder, partly of abrasion from 
his being nearly always in a reclining position, 
either in bed or on a sofa. 

" His thirst was great, his tongue white and dry, 
and his pulse hurried. Rarely could he obtain an 
hour's continuous sleep at night. After the first 
mesmerizing he slept better than he had done for 
weeks, and in three or four days the continous 
fever was exchanged for a hectic attack, which 
came on periodically, about six o'clock in the even- 
ing, but rarely lasted more than two hours. The 
furred tongue became pure as an infant's, the ap- 
petite excellent, and so continued until within 
three days of the closing struggle. 

"The pulse, also, sank into a calm state; which 
was only disturbed by the recurrence of the even- 



158 Vital Magnetism. 

ing hectic. In all points, the improvement was so 
remarkable that every one about the patient thought 
that, had Mesmerism been earlier resorted to, the 
patient's life must have been preserved. But the 
abcess had already too deeply affected the bones of 
the back and hip, and had extended too near the 
femoral artery, to be checked by human means; 
or even by those almost superhuman aids which 
Mesmerism may be said to afford. 

" Dr. Ennemoser attended his patient always at 
one certain hour (two o'clock) every day. 

" During the manipulations, the sufferer invaria- 
bly slept, but not always with the same degree of 
intensity. Even in the slightest stages of Mesmeric 
slumber, it was remarkable that R. T. could bear 
to have his right leg and thigh moved out of their 
customary position, and even somewhat roughly 
handled; whereas, at other times, an accidental 
touch upon those parts would cause him to shriek 
with agony. At all times, and in any moment, the 
Mesmeric passes either soothed or arrested the pa- 
tient's sufferings, and having once been Mesmerized 
by Dr. Ennemoser, .he was susceptible to the Mes- 
meric action of those with whom he lived in daily 
relationship. His brother, especially, who had 
come from England to attend his death-bed, could 
exert this influence over him, and had the ability 
to quiet his paroxysms of pain, or to make him sleep, 
at moments when under ordinary circumstances, 
any approach of slumber would have been impos- 
sible. 



The Testimony of Test. 159 

"What a valuable power was this! As any at- 
tempt at opiates increased the fever, and brought 
on slight delirium, let any one imagine what un- 
told treasures resided in the simple motions of the 
hand, which calmed the thrill of agony, and gave 
repose to the throbbing, yet exhausted nature! 

" They who have heard, as I have heard, the 
dreadful shrieks, the sounds, more resembling the 
bellowing of a wild animal than the intonation of a 
human voice, which are wrung from the poor suf- 
ferer (and that sufferer a much- loved friend), under 
that most horrible, most appaling malady — the Lum- 
bar Abscess — they, and they alone can appreciate the 
almost overpowering thankfulness which swells the 
heart in return for a gift that, in a few moments, 
causes the shrill cry to sink into a tremulous murmur, 
that murmur again to become an almost inarticulate 
sob, and that sob to die, at length, away into the 
blessed stillness of a deep restoring slumber ! 

" Oh we may reason and reason about the truth 
of Mesmerism — the more or the less of faith we 
bestow upon its wondrous, yet shifting phenomena 
— but in such a case as this we feel, and in child- 
like spirit, acquiesce in the benefit, which we are 
unable to analyze. " The heart is wise," as Southey 
has beautifully said ; and here, at least, is demon- 
stration in its glow of gratitude — that this power 
is of God ! 

" These tranquilizing effects of mesmeric in- 
fluence were manifested even unto the end of my 
dear friend's life. 



160 Vital Magnetism. 

"Yet he owed a deeper debt than this to Mes- 
merism ! It had reclaimed him from the hardest 
infidelity ! Of a singular organization, R. T. — the 
most amiable of human beings — approached the 
nearest to an atheist of any one I ever met with. 
He seemed to want the very faculty which says at 
once — a God must be ! But in his last illness then 
it was that a new principle supplied the defect of 
the original nature, more strikingly than if that 
nature had from the beginning appeared full of 
holy veneration. Who that then saw him leaning 
over his bible, as he sate for an hour or two in the 
evening, propped up by pillows on every side, calm 
even under the attack of periodical fever ; triumph- 
ing over mortal infirmity and pain ; rejoicing while 
we inwardly mourned ; and whispering patience 
and comfort to all around him ; who that beheld 
this strength made perfect in weakness, but must 
have said : " The hand of heaven is here !" 

" And this faith — this wondrous patience — this 
1 holy comfort springing out of tears,' were (as he 
himself told me), attributable, under Divine Pro- 
vidence, to Mesmerism. 

" From having seen mesmeric phenomena, to 
which he could not refuse his assent, he was led, 
step by step, to recognize the mighty truth of 
spirit predominant over matter — consequently of a 
ruling spirit creating and sustaining all things. He 
who sees and ministers to the spiritual wants of all 
His reasoning creatures, had adapted this remedy 



The Testimony of Test. 161 

to the peculiar and fearful disease of the intellect 
under which R. T. had labored. 

" And, touchingly, he said to me, 'I rejoice that 
Mesmerism should be the last remedy tried on me ; 
that it should prove successful in calming my 
pains, because it was the first thing that, through 
God's blessing, relieved me from the worse evil of 
an unbelieving heart.' 

" And so, praying and praising God, and grateful 
for 'Mesmerism, the gift of God,' his spirit was 
loosed from its earthly bonds at the very moment 
when, after a severe paroxysm of pain, his brother 
was mesmerizing him, as he thought, into the 
calmest slumber. In connection with the relief 
which Mesmerism afforded to the last hours of my 
suffering friend, was another remarkable instance 
of the beneficial effects of the agency in question. 

" The surgeon who attended R. T. in a purely 
surgical capacity, was an intelligent man, possessed 
not only of much skill in his immediate profession, 
but of considerable medical knowledge. Having 
frequently witnessed the power of the mesmeric 
passes to calm R. T., even under the severest par- 
oxysms of pain, Herr Lorenz requested me to give 
him some instructions in the mesmeric art, which 
he purposed occasionally to employ, should a case, 
to which the agency might seem applicable, occur 
in his practice amongst the neighboring poor, 
many of whom he attended gratuitously. One day 
he came to me filled with pleasure and excitement, 
and related that he had had extraordinary success 



1 62 Vital Magnetism. 

with Mesmerism, in a case which, for some days, 
had baffled his medical efforts, and had given him 
considerable uneasiness. The patient was a young 
man — a poor laborer's son, who was suffering under 
the worst form of typhus fever, and had been for a 
long period without sleep, talking incessantly, in a 
state of constant delirium. 

"After about half an hour's mesmerization, the 
young man ceased talking, and soon after, fell into 
a calm and critical slumber. This circumstance so 
astonished the youth's grandfather, who was at the 
time in the patient's room (the common room in- 
deed of all the family) that he retreated behind 
the stove to mutter Ave Marias and Paternosters, 
in order to exorcise the Evil One, who alone, as 
the old man thought (herein reasoning no worse 
than many a pious Protestant) could have possibly 
produced such a rapid change for the better. For- 
tunately his holy adjurations were insufficient to 
chase the kindly spirit that was calming and healing 
his poor grandson; and the young man awoke from 
the long and refreshing slumber which Mesmerism 
had induced, to an amended state, and to the pos- 
session of his senses. 

" Under continued mesmeric treatment, the pa- 
tient recovered his strength and health, as Herr 
Lorenz informed me, more rapidly than is usual 
with persons who have been similarly affected. 

" A brother of the young man, and the grandfa- 
ther, now fell ill of the typhus, the infection of 
which, being in the same chamber with the invalid, 



The Testimony of Test. 163 

they could not escape. In these latter cases, Herr 
Lorenz assured me, the disorder was robbed of its 
horrors by a timely resort to Mesmerism, the em- 
ployment of which was no longer suspiciously 
viewed by the old man. In fact, by a common re- 
action of feeling, he had for some time transferred 
the miracles of Mesmerism from the enemy of 
mankind's account to the credit of the Blessed 
Virgin. 

" That the grandfather, who was eighty-three 
years of age, should have recovered speedily from 
this malignant fever, with scarcely any other remedy 
than Mesmerism (for in all the cases, but little med- 
icine was given) is another proof of the curative 
powers of this influence. The instances of the 
utility of Mesmerism that have been detailed to me 
by foreign mesmerizers, some of whom are med- 
ical men — others not — are far too numerous to form 
part of a work ; they would if duly set down con- 
stitute a work of themselves. I shall, therefore, 
only avail myself of the testimony touching the 
benefits of Mesmerism of one or two persons, on 
whose accuracy, from the coincidence of personal 
observation, I can place the firmest reliance. 

" Dr. Ennemoser has assured me that he has suc- 
cessfully employed Mesmerism — either alone or 
conjointly with other remedies — in almost every 
ailment to which the human constitution is liable ; 
but more especially where it was chiefly desirable 
to excite a healthy action in the nerves and brain. 
He considered this as the one appointed remedy for 



164 Vital Magnetism. 

epilepsy, and declared that he had cured by it 'sev- 
eral cases of madness. 

" Dr. Wilde, of Berne, informed me, that by 
mesmerizing a lady, suffering under periodical 
attacks of St. Vitus' dance, at the time when the 
affection used to come on, he succeeded in putting 
off the attack every day to a later hour, until its 
recurrence was altogether prevented. He also re- 
lated to me a most interesting case of another 
lady, in the last extremity, under an attack of the 
Iliac Passion, whom he supported in his arms, every 
moment expecting her dissolution, when the happy 
thought came, like an inspiration, to his mind — 
try Mesmerism ! He did so, and the relief was 
immediate. The spasmodic action subsided, and 
the patient's life was preserved. 

" During a residence at Dresden, I had the pleas- 
ure of hearing many authentic particulars of mes- 
meric cures from Count Szapary, a nobleman, of 
one of the oldest families in Hungary, who has de- 
voted his fortune, time and talents to the exercise 
of Mesmerism, for the relief of disorders alone. I 
have seldom witnessed a more touching festival 
than was a public breakfast given to this gentle- 
man by the friends of those persons whom he had 
either benefited or cured by Mesmeric means. 

" Many of the patients, now restored to health, 
were present at the table, and many of their rela- 
tives rose, one by one, to return thanks to the noble 
mesmerizer for the good which, under Divine Provi- 
dence, he had done to those who were dear to them. 



The Testimony of Test. 165 

"One aged man spoke a few grateful words, but 
his voice faltered, and, tears choking his utterance, 
he was forced to sit down in a silence which was 
more eloquent than speech. It was for the preser- 
vation of his only daughter, snatched by Mesmer- 
ism from the very brink of the grave, that he de- 
sired to express his gratitude ! 

" A young lady, who sat next me at breakfast, a 
charming person, well known in the higher circles 
of Dresden, gave me a most interesting account of 
her own restoration to the blessings of health by the 
Mesmeric aid of Count Szapary. For two years, 
she told me, she had been unable to rise from her 
bed, or scarcely to move her limbs from nervous 
paralysis. 'At present,' she said, 'I can walk, 
ride, dance as much as I will ; and many persons 
here, who know my former state, will scarcely be- 
lieve in my identity with the poor bed-ridden crea- 
ture that excited everybody's pity. 

" ' Some who meet me out walking, stare at me, 
and start as if they had seen a ghost. Not, indeed, 
that I look much like one at the present time ;' — 
a remark in which I fully coincided. 

" Indeed, the peculiarly blooming appearance of 
this young lady so much belied all past suffering, 
that, till I entered into conversation with her, I 
never dreamed that she could have been a mesmeric 
patient. The efficient cause of her cure, this lady de- 
clared to me, was a mesmeric sleep, which lasted a 
fortnight, of the events of which, she positively 
assured me, she had no manner of recollection. 



1 66 Vital Magnetism. 

" Yet, from the testimony of her parents, and of 
those who were about her, during the period of 
the slumber, she could not doubt that she had in 
this time spoken, taken nourishment, and beheld 
objects, although her eyes were closed. Such 
lengthened mesmeric trances as this were fre- 
quently, as I heard from Count Szapary himself, 
and from others of his patients, produced by him 
in certain cases, and were a powerful means of 
restoration to health. Not, as the Count assured 
me, that he labored at producing any such effect. 
On the contrary, he believed (and Dr. Chapelaine, 
in Paris, told me the same thing), that the mes- 
meric sleep was by no means an indispensable con- 
dition of mesmeric benefit. 

" Many of his patients, he said, having got well 
under daily mesmerizing, without having expe- 
rienced any drowsiness, or extraordinary symp- 
tom whatever. His great desire was to leave Na- 
ture free, to select such means of renovation as 
should be most suited to her exigencies — to follow 
where she guided, not himself to lead the way, and 
to concentrate his thoughts as much as possible, 
upon the single, simple idea of doing good to the 
patient. 

" But where the trance occurred, as it did mostly 
in exhausted, yet irritable temperaments, the Count 
considered that this was the one thing wanting to 
restore the equilibrium of the constitution, and to 
enable Nature to recover her tone by a prolonged 
repose. 



The Testimony of Test. 167 

" That Count Szapary should, as it were, involun- 
tarily cause this effect, so rare to be used by other 
mesmerizers, is a proof of that which I have always 
believed, namely, that to each person belongs a 
mesmeric action, as peculiar and as individual as 
his own character. Count Szapary certainly pos- 
sesses great mesmeric energy, being able to mes- 
merize many persons in the course of the day, 
without fatigue to himself. 

" In England, not less than on the continent, 
opportunities have been afforded me of gathering 
evidence respecting the good that Mesmerism has 
effected. 

" I have accompanied Dr. Elliottson in his visits 
to such patients as he was treating by Mesmerism, 
and have listened to many an artless expression of 
gratitude, poured out to him by persons of various 
classes, for the important benefit they had derived 
from this calumniated remedy. 

" One of the most eloquent of these was a re- 
spectable woman, with whom I found myself acci- 
dentally in the same room at Dr. Elliottson's while 
waiting one day until he had leisure to see me. 
This person assured me, that for years she had suf- 
fered a martyrdom from tic-douloureux, to such an 
extent, that when Dr. Elliottson first began to mes- 
merize her, she could not hold any cold substance, 
even an open book (unless it were previously 
warmed at a fire) near her face, without a parox- 
ysm of pain, which would send her darting invol- 
untarily from one end of the room to the other. 



1 68 Vital Magnetism. 



Of course, the contact of the open air would have 
been unbearable torture to her. "And now," she 
said, " I walk every day, in all kinds of weather, to 
Dr. Elliottson's house, without inconvenience; and 
instead of having to suffer many attacks of agony 
in an hour, I often pass a whole day without pain.' 

" There was something in my accidental meeting 
with this woman — in her earnest and natural story 
— in the utter absence of pretension to display, 
which impressed me strongly. 

"And this is only one case of many such. I am 
indebted to Mr. Wood, who has studied under Dr. 
Elliottson, and who also admits Mesmerism into 
his medical practice, for having witnessed one of 
the most triumphant proofs of the power of this 
influence that can be conceived. 

" It was the case of a little boy, only three years 
of age, who was born an idiot, and who had dis- 
tressed all those about him by incessant shrieking, 
especially during the night; in consequence of 
which his mother declared she could scarcely ob- 
tain any sleep or repose. The mother, a respectable 
person of the middling class, brought in the child, 
which appeared not larger than an infant of fifteen 
months old; but no infant of that age, to whom 
the gift of reason was vouchsafed, ever presented 
that fearful absence of expression, which, in the 
dropping of the lip, and unmeaning eye, character- 
ized this unhappy sufferer. At the time when Mr. 
Wood began the mesmerizing, the child was keep- 
ing up a sort of low moaning and occasionally cry- 



The Testimony of Test. 169 

ing aloud in a strange and disagreeable tone of 
voice. 

It was also moving restlessly about in the moth- 
er's arms. 

" After about five minutes' mesmerization the 
change in the child's demeanor was most striking. 
There was no longer any moaning or restlessness; 
and the eyes had gained a human look, that grew 
upon them till they began to close in slumber, 
which at the end of little more than ten minutes, 
was complete, and of the deepest kind. At this 
time the countenance had lost everything that was 
unpleasant. 

" It had even the remarking and attentive expres- 
sion which so strongly distinguishes the mesmeric 
from common sleep, so that, in gazing upon it, one 
could now say,' There is mind here!' About the 
eyelids, especially, was that singular look, so pecu- 
liar to mesmeric sleep-waking, as if the eye were 
looking through them to something beyond. 

" I was allowed to test the depth of the child's 
slumber by rather rough methods, such as shaking 
it, shouting out loudly close to its ears, &c, but 
nothing disturbed its repose in the slightest degree. 
The arm was taken up, and suddenly, left to itself, 
fell like lead, and more lifelessly than in ordinary 
sleep, upon whatever arrested its descent. 
! " The mother now placed the child upon the bed, 
and assured me that it would sleep there quietly 
for hours, and awake in a far more tranquil state 
than that in which I had first seen it. The improve- 



170 Vital Magnetism. 

ment in the child's condition, since the time when 
the mesmerization was undertaken, she told me, 
consisted in the following particulars: The rest at 
night was now good, and, for the blessing, she said 
she could not be too grateful. 

" They alone could appreciate it, who had known, 
like her, what it was to sit up, night after night, 
with a child in that fearful state of idiotism. 

" By day, the paroxysms of crying, and of con- 
vulsive motion had become less frequent, and of a 
milder character; and, whereas formerly the child 
took no notice of anything whatever, it now began 
occasionally (and more especially when awakening 
from mesmeric slumber), to show symptoms of be- 
ing interested in various objects. But, above all, 
there was an evident dawn of speech, and the 
words 'papa' and 'mama' were, however imper- 
fectly, uttered ; but, before Mesmerism was tried, 
nothing approaching to articulate sound had ever 
passed the child's lips. 

"I do not instance this as an evidence of the 
power of Mesmerism to restore confirmed idiocy 
to reason — in other words, to work a miracle. 

"The child was relieved, not cured, and is, I be- 
lieve, an idiot still — though of a milder kind than 
formerly. 

"Afflicted as he was with a radical disease of the 
brain, a perfect restoration of the mental functions 
was not to be looked for ; but greater progress 
toward reason had perhaps been made could Mr. 
Wood have concentrated his time and mesmeric 



The Testimony of Test. 171 

power upon this one patient ; but he was called out 
of town to attend upon an urgent case, which occu- 
pied him for some weeks, just at the time when he 
was daily producing more remarkable effects upon 
the little idiot boy. 

" This statement will probably nullify all that I 
have said regarding this extraordinary case, be- 
cause, with most persons, not to cure is equivalent 
to doing nothing at all. But I must say a few 
words on this point. 

" Is mitigation of suffering nothing in this suffer- 
ing world ? Who are the persons who choose to 
deny the advantage of a remedy because it is not 
entirely curative ? Certainly not those who are 
tortured by disease, nor their friends who wit- 
nessed that torture. It is the partisans of a sys- 
tem — the prejudiced — whose prejudices no attack 
of serious pain, neither of illness, has shaken ; who, 
being in possession of health themselves, can very 
calmly imagine that a pang more or less is of but 
very trifling consequence ; and that, more espe- 
cially, any one pang rendered less by Mesmerism, 
must be treason to all that is regular and respecta- 
ble in this world of words and forms. To me the 
case of the idiot child, however stopping short of 
perfect relief, is deeply interesting in sundry 
points of view. To produce any mitigation of 
symptoms, any glimmering of reason — in a case of 
born idiotism — is more extraordinary than to effect 
a cure of delirium, or mania, springing from acci- 
dental causes. This partial triumph over organic 



172 Vital Magnetism. 

defect shows Mesmerism capable of producing, to 
the verge of the possible, and of educing from cer- 
tain elements all the favorable results of which 
those elements are susceptible. The fact of Mes- 
merism having been able to compose, and so 
quickly bring into slumber, a child of three years 
old — that child, moreover, an idiot, suffering under 
high irritation — is sufficient of itself to refute the 
opinion of those who would refer Mesmeric efforts 
to the delusions of the imagination." 

The thoroughly practical character of Mr. Towns- 
hend's facts and deductions, justifies the extended 
quotation I have made from his interesting work. 

The statements are the more valuable as coming 
from a thoroughly disinterested observer, and 
noticed by him as mere incidents, rather than as 
primary facts related to the field which he had 
prescribed for himself in his investigations in Psy- 
chology. 

They also have value by giving a practical an- 
swer to some of the weak objections of weak 
minds, who in this day, as in the day for which he 
wrote, are carried off their feet by the extraordi- 
nary character of some of the cures effected by 
this agency, and tremble lest they have stumbled 
upon something which shall undermine their 
Christian faith, or touch upon some forbidden 
ground which has heretofore been looked upon as 
miraculous and supernatural. 

In the earlier history of the science some weak- 
headed clergymen felt called upon to denounce the 



The Testimony of Test. 173 

practice as an emanation of evil, just as they 
preached sermons against vaccination upon its first 
introduction. All these objections have died out, 
and it would be a waste of time and patience to 
travel over the ground now, as these cavils have 
long since been fully answered by deeds of good, 
instead of the evil effects which were predicted by 
such opponents. If, however, the reader would like 
to follow a polemical discussion he will find an 
exhaustive one in the Rev. Mr. Sandby's work, 
entitled "Mesmerisrn and its Opponents," or in a 
work by Mr. George Barth of London, styled 
" Mesmerism Not Miracle." These works are de- 
voted to this class of objections, and fully answer 
every imaginary cavil of this character. 

One such testimony as Mr. Townshend adduces, 
where his friend's infidelity was made to give way, 
and his mental darkness to flee with his racking 
pain, while he exclaims: " Mesmerism, through 
God's blessing, relieved me from the worse evil of 
an unbelieving heart," is a better answer than any 
amount of dry speculation, or angry denunciation, 
and vindicates that wise saying that " a house di- 
vided against itself cannot stand." 

The curative power of this agency stands where 
it belongs, within the circle of natural law, and is in 
no way in competition with the grand displays of 
Omnipotent power made by our Divine Master 
when He was on the earth. 



XIV. 

MY OWN POSITION. 

I have now reached the limit prescribed to my- 
self for the presentation of facts and statements 
relating to magnetic cure. 

The great difficulty has been to select from the 
huge mass those items that would command most 
general attention from the American public, and 
convey an adequate idea of the magnitude of the 
investigations prosecuted in Europe. It is to be 
hoped that the wave of inquiry shall yet sweep 
with irresistible force across this land, bringing 
into activity powers for good that now lie dormant 
and unused. 

Only those medical men who have had access to 
foreign authors, so difficult to obtain in this country, 
have any technical knowledge ; and the number who 
have had personal experience in the practice is still 
less. This is evidenced by the crude attempts to dis- 
cuss the subject in medical conventions, where the 
vast majority must sit dumb, and frequently those 
who present its claims seem ignorant of the fact that 
the same things have been matters of common intelli- 
gence abroad for more than a quarter of a century. 
I trust such sources of information will be opened 
by the perusal of these pages as will lead earnest 






My Own Position. 175 

minds to seek closer contact with the thought and 
experience of the authorities to whom I point, who 
have already done so much in the field that many 
imagine to be so new. 

I claim no originality of discovery. I have 
proved by experiment and practice much that is 
set forth by the authorities presented to the reader 
on this branch of the subject ; and while I have 
not been indifferent to the fascinations of the so- 
called higher mental phenomena often met with in 
magnetic practice, I have studiously avoided intro- 
ducing this element into what I design to be strictly 
a review of the subject in its relations to the heal- 
ing art, believing that anything beycnd this, at 
present, will be but confusing and out of place, 
and of no practical value. 

For the same reason I have omitted the discus- 
sion of processes, upon which so much has been 
said by others. No mere form of inducing the 
magnetic condition has pre-eminent advantages 
over all others, and there is no solid basis, in my 
judgment, for any such distinction; what is claimed 
for one condition is often misapplied in others, and 
each process doubtless has its advantages under 
given circumstances. What may appear simple 
enough in itself is not a proper thing for indis- 
criminate use by the thoughtless and ignorant, 
who can alone do mischief with a power that 
should be sacredly guarded. There are plenty of 
avenues open for the acquisition of knowledge in 
this direction to those who are entitled to be in- 



176 Vital Magnetism. 

formed in regard to it, and I do not propose to be 
one of the many who have encouraged indiscrim- 
inate, useless, and foolish, if not dangerous, experi- 
ment. To the elucidation of this folly a few para- 
graphs upon sympathetic influence may be de- 
voted by way of caution to the ill-informed. 



XV. 

SYMPATHETIC INFLUENCE. 

This is a subject that concerns practitioners 
more than patients, and while there are widely 
varying susceptibilities and idiosyncracies among 
patients, the same is true of the practitioners, and 
though many of them may escape sympathetic 
effects from contact with numerous diseased con- 
ditions, others experience more or less discom- 
fort, and are perhaps exposed to some personal 
risk. 

The writer himself has often experienced tem- 
porary effects lasting for an hour or two, but never 
leaving any permanent traces behind. 

It is doubtless true, also, that active and success- 
ful practitioners are most liable to a disturbance 



Sympathetic Influence, 177 

of this kind, but if they have a strong will, and 
powers of concentration, it can be readily over- 
come. 

The absence of these qualities probably accounts 
for so many men failing, after a brief practice, in 
this profession. 

These effects and the natural ability to overcome 
them, must be settled by the experience of each 
practitioner for himself ; no rule can be laid down 
of general application. Many practitioners have 
lived to a good old age whose labors were tre- 
mendous ; as, witness Doctor Mesmer, who lived to 
be over 80 years of age, his own last illness being 
delightfully soothed and ameliorated by vital mag- 
netism. 

In this line Dr. Reynoldson, of Bootle, near 
Liverpool, reports, November 8th, 1847. on P a g e 
325 of 5 Vol. Zoist : "Having for several years 
devoted myself entirely to the cure of disease by 
mesmeric action alone, I have been daily, and often 
hourly,, conscious of sympathetic pain when mes- 
merising a patient ; and I notice this pain occur the 
same minute that the correspondent pain leaves the 
sufferer, the pain generally passing away in a few 
moments or minutes, but occasionally continuing 
with much severity for some hours, and once it 
continued about the diaphragm for eight days, 
and was then relieved by magnetism." Again he 
says : " In my practice here, upon two occasions, I 
have been banished from my patient in fever by 
the advice. of physicians." 



178 Vital Magnetism. 

" The one patient turned dark in typhus fever 
and recovered; the other soon recovered. But my 
nights were sleepless for hours during the progress 
of each case, and I can testify from most painful 
experience that intense suffering may be inflicted 
upon the mesmerist, who, after establishing a strong 
sympathy with his patient, is not allowed to con- 
tinue to manipulate during the severe stages of 
the disease." 

Dr. Elliottson observes : 

" The fact of the transit or metastasis of disease 
from one individual to another, whether of the 
same or of a different species, is unknown to the 
medical world. But this pathological occurrence 
is proved by Mesmerism as clearly as the physio- 
logical fact of cerebral sympathy of sensation and 
thought between two individuals. I am not aware 
that any account of it exists in medical works, but 
probably very many instances are recorded in mes- 
meric writings, since it is commonly spoken of 
amongst mesmerists." 

The following case in point is also furnished by 
Dr. Elliottson, supplemented by a letter addressed 
by the patient himself to the editor of the Zoist, 
and found upon page 236 of the fifth volume of 
that journal: 

" A young tradesman in my neighborhood, whom 
I had never seen, came to consult me oh the 25th of 
August, 1.846; he had dark hair, and was pale and 
slim, but possessed of remarkably firm muscles, 
and was so swift that he had beaten the most noted 



Sympathetic Influence. 179 

runners. He informed me that he had been ill 
more or less for some years; that the slightest cir- 
cumstance had cast him down or irritated him, ac 
cording to its nature; that he felt sometimes as if 
he should go out of his mind, and sometimes as if 
he were about to die; that he slept well, but was 
tired before going to sleep, and awoke in the morn- 
ing tired, though he had no muscular weakness; 
he frequently experienced a heaviness of the eyes; 
sometimes numbness and tingling all over him; 
sometimes violent itching of his arms; his hands 
were cold and shriveled; the bowels were often 
torpid, and at those times he was always worse; 
that the liver secreted too sparingly, and that he 
was better in the country. His mother was ner- 
vous. 

" I prescribed in the best way I could for him. 
In about ten days he called upon me one evening, 
with his symptoms very intense, and suffering a 
headache so severe as almost to drive him mad. 
This lasted till next morning; and when he called 
again in two days, he was in the first state as when 
I first saw him. On the evening of this day I left 
London for Switzerland, and did not see him again 
till the beginning of November. 

" After being under my treatment for two months^ 
he was no better. I had not mentioned Mesmerism 
to him, although I believed from the first it would 
be the best thing for his case, because I have been 
compelled for a long while never to name this sub- 
ject before inquiries are made to me. I found a 



180 Vital Magnetism. 



large number of medical men, physicians, and gen- 
eral practitioners equally, who were perfectly ig- 
norant of it, who had done their patients no good, 
and had no hope of doing them good, stare at me 
with a far more sagacious look than I could give, 
and assure me they considered it nonsense, and 
would not consent to its use; and I found large 
numbers of patients refuse to hear of it, because 
they knew it was nonsense, dangerous, or Satanic. 
I give my opinion honestly when it is asked, but I 
will never run the risk of finding persons unreason- 
able or ridiculous, and of being thwarted in an 
attempt to do my duty by them. 

" This patient and his wife had heard of Mes- 
merism, and now, as he was no better, inquired 
what I thought of it in his case. I immediately 
informed them that it ought to be tried, and was 
very likely to be of essential service." 

Dr. Elliottson instructed the wife of this patient 
so that she could continue the magnetic treatment 
in his absence. It resulted in the man's complete 
recovery, but also in the transference of the disease 
to the wife, who was the operator. Their mutual 
experience was communicated to the Zoist, as fol- 
lows : 

To the Editor ot the Zoist : 

77 Wells street, Oxford street, Sept. 3, 1847. 

Sir: I feel it to be a duty I owe to suffering humanity to 

make known my experiences of the powerful agent to whose 

salutary influence I am indebted for the healthy mind and 

body at the present moment engaged in writing this narrative 



Sympathetic Ififluence. 181 

of my relief from mental and bodily torture. Yes ! against the 
senseless raillery of its opponents, I will record my grateful 
testimony to its virtues. And at this moment — with a mind 
undisturbed by phantasies, and a body in which the stream of 
life is flowing redolent with health — I might be pardoned, were 
the pleasures of my present existence contrasted with the bit- 
terness of the past, to hurry me into the language of enthu- 
siasm. Such, however, is far from my intention ; I wish to 
give a plain statement of my sufferings and cure, in the hope 
that some poor sufferer may be led to disregard the nonsensi- 
cal opposition of bigoted ignorance, and use the means which 
by the blessing of God proved so healing to me. 

I was twenty-seven years of age, the son of affectionate 
parents, the husband of a devoted wife, the father of healthy 
children, and in a position of life insuring most of life's com- 
forts. 

And yet, with all these means of happiness, I was a wretch, 
to whom the years of life were years of misery — imaginary 
if you will — yet misery ; my smile was an effort to prove my- 
self not divested of the sympathies of humanity ; the dread 
of suicide followed me as my shadow, while from my temples 
scarcely ever fled the dull, dull pain, which sometimes in- 
creased to positive agony. To my morbid fancy, no security 
could preserve my children from untimely deaths, no precau- 
tion ward off evils whose dark shadows blackened my soul. 
These symptoms softened at times, yet ever preying on my 
peace of mind, were my companions for years. 

My temples are indented with leech bites, my arms scarred 
with issues, my body was poisoned with medicine. I never 
recollect feeling myself what I could emphatically term in 
health, until the last few months, in which I have taken greater 
liberties with myself than I ever did in my life before. 

It was after one of my most violent paroxysms, I had the 
happiness to consult Dr. Elliottson, the indomitable champion 
of mesmeric truth. The man who, for a great principle in 
nature, of which he was convinced, defied the sneers of ignor- 



1 82 Vital Magnetism. 

ance, the malice of envy, and the filth of misrepresentation ; 
and who, after suffering, as he must have done, a martyrdom of 
anxiety, has lived, thank God, to see it fully borne out by the 
experience of thousands, and — the only reward he sought — 
seen its solitary influence exhibited in the alleviation and 
eradication of human suffering. 

Excuse this digression ; it is the outpouring of a grateful 
heart, warmed by the recollection of its benefactor. By the 
advice of Dr. Elliottson I was induced to try mesmerism, and 
my wife having been shown the way to exert its influence upon 
me, commenced operations. 

At length, about a month after the first essay, I sank into a 
mesmeric sleep. 

Its influence from that time was complete ; a few moments 
only served to send me into a slumber, from which I awoke a 
healthier man. My cure was rapid and complete ; physic was 
thrown to the dogs ; and any recurrence of my former symp- 
toms vanished at the wave of her hand. Then it was that a 
most singular phenomenon was shown. 

I looked upon my wife and beheld in her an image of my 
former self. The ills which before I had to mourn over in 
myself, I saw in her. The same dejection, the same feeling of 
weariness, the same pains. The high-spirited, light-hearted 
woman turned into the desponding invalid. I had bequeathed 
to the mother of my children the malady which had made my 
life a misery. But who under such circumstances could give 
way to despair ? 

Mesmerism had expunged the word from my vocabulary. 

We waited upon Dr. Elliottson, who kindly mesmerized my 
wife daily ; and in less than a fortnight I had the happiness of 
seeing her the same happy creature as heretofore. 

I have had but one return of my old enemy, was mesmer- 
ized, and awoke well. 

Such, sir, are the particulars of my case. To any one seek- 
ing relief from pain, I shall be happy at any time to render 
any information in my power ; and the happiness I experience 



Dr. Newnham s Exposition of Principles. 183 

.n my recovery will be enhanced, if I can be assured of one 
)oor sufferer following my example, with, I feel confident, the 
ame happy results. 

I am sir, your obedient servant, 

William Snewing. 

These instances will suffice to give fair warning 
to inexperienced persons of the risk and discomfort 
they may incur by tampering with a force they do 
not know how to control. 



XVI. 

DR. NEWNHAM'S EXPOSITION OF PRINCIPLES AND 
PLEA FOR INVESTIGATION AND ADOPTION BY 
THE PROFESSION. 

The practice itself need not and ought not to 
come into competition with medical practice of any 
school, nor to exclude medical science in any form, 
but should be accepted as one of the physician's 
most powerful aids, for its advocates and expound- 
ers have been found in every school of medicine, 
and among their most eminent representatives. 

While it will be seen that its range is exceedingly 
wide, its proper field of application is doubtless 



184 Vital Magnetism. 

more specifically within the line of nervous dis- 
eases where medication has failed to afford relief. 

I plead for unbiased investigation, and to this 
end let that eminent English surgeon and writer, 
Newnham, speak to his brethren : 

"It is important," he says, "that magnetism 
should be investigated as other sciences ; that ac- 
knowledging the existence of the agent, the modes 
of its action should be ascertained, and that the 
inquiry should be conducted by men whose scien- 
tific habits will enable them to collect, to weigh, to 
discuss, to estimate, to discriminate testimony, and 
to adopt or reject it, according to its intrinsic 
merits. It is, however, to be remembered that 
even here is a concealed evil which must be 
guarded against. 

" While scientific men are generally considered 
to be free from vulgar prejudice, it is a fact that 
they are liable, in no small degree, to a class of 
prejudices peculiarly their own, and marked, where 
they do exist, by an intensity and pertinacity which 
are wanting in feebler and inferior minds. Preju- 
dice in the vulgar and uneducated, or partially 
educated, commonly assumes the form of all-de- 
vouring and immeasurable belief, and a yielding 
up of themselves to the influence of feeling. With 
the learned, on the contrary, the very antipodes to 
the former class, prejudice assumes the shape of 
skepticism, a doubt as to everything which is not 
proven to demonstration, or which appeals in any 
way directly or indirectly to the voice of feeling or 



Dr. Newnham 's Exposition of Prificiples. 185 

passion, or to the influence of imagination ; it is 
reason alone which is to be attended to, and an 
amount of proof is asked for which is incompatible 
with the imperfect state of our knowledge and 
faculties, of our acquired stores of wisdom, and of 
our powers for further acquisitions. 

"It is one of the prejudices of great minds (for 
great minds are quite compatible with many little- 
nesses) to dislike novelty because it is new, and 
that, perhaps, precisely in the same proportion as 
this characteristic is attractive to little minds ; and 
therefore, since the phenomena of produced a?id lucid 
somnambulism are rare, they have been invested 
with more than usual doubt. Hence the very great 
importance, in order to arrive at clear results, to 
distinguish between the two from the beginning, 
and not to confound Magnetism, whose existence 
is shown by incontestable proofs, with Somnambu- 
lism, whose features are of a more questionable and 
protean character, and is a state oftentimes indepen- 
dent of, but occasionally developed by, magnetism. 

" The truth is, that in tracing the history of the 
relation of facts to their causes, and between them- 
selves, observers have often been mistaken, in their 
degree and mode of relation, either from their being 
mere theorizers, and from their determination to 
theorize, before they inquired, or that they had not 
the required amount of knowledge, to enable them 
to judge accurately or that they were carried away 
by their feelings. In order to avoid all these errors, 
it is necessary first to aim after impartiality, — to 



1 86 Vital Magnetism. 

scrutinize the narrative of facts, to test what is 
doubtful, to separate the true from the false, and 
to endeavor to arrange the residual product under 
some known physiological laws, always taking 
care not to confound the cause and the effect as one, 
and thus to argue in a very limited, but never- 
ending circle of truism. The facts should be com- 
pared with other facts, judged of, and reasoned 
upon; but the reasonings must not precede the 
careful record and observation of facts. It may be 
asked, perhaps, what is a fact? This question will 
be answered by the ignorant, as everything which 
their credulity can believe ; and by the learned, it 
will be defined to be anything within the limit of 
their previous knowledge. 

" Both answers are fatal to improvement, yet there 
is more hope that the ignorance of the vulgar may 
be cleared away, than that the intolerance of the 
learned should be overcome; the former may per- 
chance be accessible in instruction, but the learned 
invest themselves with the supercilious panoply of 
their own pride, and despise and condemn every- 
thing beyond the reach of their ordinary views. 

" It is, however, the part of puling credulity alone 
to believe everything which may seem to be, even un- 
der such favorable circumstances; and it is the part 
of half-informed scepticism to deny apparent facts, 
when we are so ignorant of the resources of nature, 
and when she has so many ways, to us perfectly un- 
known, in which may be concealed the truth, for 
which we are professing to inquire. 



Dr. Newnhani s Exposition of Principles. 187 

"To escape from this ignorance on the one hand, 
and presumption on the other, it is right to with- 
hold our opinion till we have dispassionately in- 
quired into the facts and circumstances, as well as 
into the reasonings upon them, of those who have 
preceded us; and until we have done so, — though 
we may prudently array ourselves in scientific 
doubt, — we shall, if guided by the same principle, 
take care to avoid that amount of incredulity, which 
though it be productive of less injury to science 
than its antagonist principle of a too easy belief .in 
the marvelous, is still so serious an error as to 
demand our utmost care to escape from its entang- 
ling meshes. The result of the judicious balancing 
of these principles will be the development and 
establishment of general laws, which can only be 
drawn from the observatio 1 and accumulation of 
facts, sufficiently numerous, and adequately ob- 
served. 

" But it will be said by an objector, that to believe 
in an extraordinary fact at once is only the part of 
weakness and enthusiasm ; that in proportion as a 
fact is extraordinary, so will be the probability of er- 
ror or falsehood on the part of the witness; that a 
greater amount of testimony is required to sub- 
stantiate a suspension of Nature's laws, or any ex- 
traordinary development of her previously un- 
known resources: moreover, the very things which 
add to the strength of belief in unenlightened minds, 
are precisely those which detract from it in the 
minds of the well informed. The one being greedy 



1 88 Vital Magnetism. 

after the marvelous; the other always suspicious 
of its reality; and that, therefore, it is impossible 
to sacrifice our common sense, and the general re- 
port of ages, at the gratuitous bidding of a few 
magnetizers. 

" We rejoice to reply to an objection thus candidly 
stated. We admit that the exhibition of too easy 
credence is the mark of an enthusiastic and a feeble 
mind, — but we fearlessly assert that obstinate be- 
lief without examination is the evidence of an 
unsound mind. We have before shown that such is 
the character of the witnesses as to the facts, and 
such their agreeing testimony, as to render error 
to the last degree improbable, and falsehood impossi- 
ble. We have shown that an over-abundant array 
of testimony in favor of the facts of magnetism 
can be found, — even if these facts were miracu- 
lous, and involved a suspension of the laws of 
nature; but we have still further shown, and shall 
hereafter more distinctly prove, that they do not 
involve such deviation or suspension ; but that on 
the contrary the facts are deeply laid in the hidden 
things of nature; that they are recorded as natural 
and spontaneous products and newly exist in the 
shape of magnetic facts only as the development at 
will of their hidden resources, with the laws of 
which we are still ignorant. Moreover, we contend 
that the facts are not miraculous, though at present 
they may be inexplicable, and finally, we do not 
ask of any one the sacrifice of common sense, but 
only the adaptation of that common sense, without 



Dr. Newnham' s Exposition of Principles. 1 89 

prejudice or prevention to the sober investigation. 
of the facts. In the practical inquiry into these 
facts, it is not sufficient to employ the magnetic 
processes ; for as the results may be nothing, or use- 
ful, or hurtful, according to the individuals operated 
upon, or according to those conducting these pro- 
cesses, and according to other circumstances and 
things, which cannot always be foreseen, because 
our acquaintance with the physiology of the ner- 
vous system is yet in its infancy, it is quite clear 
that the inquiry should be directed exclusively to 
legitimate objects on the one hand, and to those 
experimenters on the other who have the judgment 
to discriminate; and the probity which will enable 
them to be firm in principle. 

" Such sincere investigators will always be re- 
warded for patient attention ; but the curious 
spectator will never be convinced by the exhibition 
of phenomena, which contradict his preconceived 
opinions ; and even the philosopher " convinced 
agaist his will," remains "of the same opinion still." 
There is no good without its corresponding evil, 
and the characteristic of the age in which we have 
rejoiced, and do rejoice, viz.: that of seeking after 
facts, has also tended to limit our researches after 
knowledge, and an enlarged acquaintance with 
the boundaries of scientific truth. For these facts, 
as they are called, are really the effects of some 
one or more concurring cause j and the minds of 
men which have discovered phenomena, the cause 
and nature of which extended beyond the boundary 



190 Vital Magnetism. 

of their former notions, have been too frequently sat- 
isfied with throwing them aside as unworthy of 
further investigation, or as having already reached 
the utmost bounds of knowledge. And yet, how- 
ever much this might be allowed of phenomena 
with which we presume to be sufficiently acquainted, 
it is to the last degree unphilosophical and intoler- 
ant with regard to those of which we are confess- 
edly more or less ignorant. 

"As yet, with respect to magnetism, there is much 
to learn; and it presents so many apparent anoma- 
lies, whose causation seems to be entirely beyond 
the reach of any of the known laws of nature, that 
they who have studied it most assiduously are still 
not safe from the apprehension of mistake. 

" Nor is this wonderful; nor does it derogate one 
atom from the character of the pursuit, or of those 
who investigate. 

" Medical men, of all others, should be the last to 
avail themselves of this undefined and uncertain 
state of things; for let them fall back upon their 
own peculiar science, and let them say if they can 
explain all the facts which present themselves to 
their notice. 

" In truth, we must be thoroughly acquainted with 
all the mysteries of creation, before we can dare 
to pronounce on the possibility of one fact, and the 
impossibility of another; we cannot even generally 
trace the causation between an organ and its func- 
tion, although we may presume to be tolerably 
well acquainted with both; and even if we were 



Dr. Newnhanis Exposition of Principles. 191 

able to do so, with regard to one organ and func- 
tion, we should have no means of judging how far 
under other circumstances these may have some 
direct or relative influence upon some other organ 
or function in its sound or morbid condition. How 
then shall they unblushingly ask for a greater 
amount of certainty in the sequences, and of per- 
fection in our acquaintance with the comparatively 
unexplored phenomena of magnetism? 

" No wonder, therefore, that the converts to 
magnetism are among those who have witnessed 
its power, while its most virulent opponents have 
been those who have never seen its effects, who have 
obstinately refused to investigate them. 

"One thing is certain, that when different persons, 
at different times, and in distant places, have 
arrived at the same results — and these results are 
supported by natural analogies, that there must be 
some truth in these novel doctrines — some things 
positive and intangible, notwithstanding the mass of 
error with which they may have been associated, 
may be so considerable as to render it difficult to 
distinguish truth from falsehood, especially if the 
investigation be abandoned by the wise and pru- 
dent and well informed, and be left to the ignor- 
ant, the prejudiced and the unthinking. 

" Thus in the days which are passed, and especial- 
ly during the middle ages, miracles (so called) were 
of frequent occurrence, which might easily be 
accounted for on natural principles. Now, we 
no longer speak of miracles ; but if anything 



192 Vital Magnetism. 

extraordinary occurs, we seek to examine first the 
truth of the facts stated, and then proceed to ex- 
plain, if we can, the peculiarity of the attendant 
circumstances. 

" Notwithstanding the progress of medicine, and 
its dependent sciences of late years, none can deny 
how utterly powerless are our remedies against a 
multitude of disorders, especially against those 
which affect nervous structure and function ; and 
for this best possible reason, that our acquaintance 
with both is so limited, so undefined, and so un- 
certain, that we are unable to form anything like 
rational indications, for the relief of their dis- 
ordered conditions. The knowledge of a disease 
is more than half its cure ; but if we have almost 
no knowledge, it is certain that our power of ad- 
ministering relief will be very limited. 

" Yet the highest object of medicine is to cure; 
and if, under such circumstances of acknowledged 
failure, any new remedy can be proposed, we 
should not disavow its assumed curative agency, 
and its consequent assistance in prosecuting this 
object, till we have proved its faithlessness, merely 
because we are unacquainted with its modus operandi 
upon that very structure and function with whose 
primal condition we are ignorant. Nor is there 
any reason why we should refuse to investigate, be- 
cause among the facts alleged by magnetizers 
there are those which exceed the possibility of be- 
lief, among many others which are undoubted and 
undeniable ; that error may be mixed with truth is 



Dr. Newnhanis Exposition of Principles. 193 

a grand motive for inquiry, but no palliation of 
unbelief. 

"Magnetism rests on a great number of real 
facts ; but its adversaries have generally avoided 
the real question, and have preferred wasting their 
strength upon speculations as to the nature, rather 
than as to the phenomena and effects of magnetic 
processes. 

" When, however, men of learning, of character, 
of honor, of high probity and professional stand- 
ing, men who have no interest to deceive, and 
everything to lose by dishonesty — when men of 
such character attest the same facts from one end 
of Europe to the other, when they describe cor- 
responding circumstances, and detail similar phe- 
nomena, how is it possible to throw the blight of 
willful doubt upon their assertions? How is it 
that medical men generally do so tacitly asperse 
their own fraternity, as they necessarily must do 
by refusing to inquire ? 

" True it is that a great surgeon once said, in dis- 
paragement of medical authority, 'Medical Facts! 
Medical Lies!!' But John Hunter was not a man 
well calculated to form a just estimate of profes- 
sional testimony; the doctrines he propounded 
were not at first sight admitted, and his unhappy, 
irascible temperament was easily ruffled and irri- 
tated by opposition ; and it was in one of these 
moments that he uttered the bitter and unjust sar- 
casm above detailed. But were it as true as it is 
unquestionably an exaggeration, it would not give 



194 Vital Magnetism. 

to the medical men of the present day a locus pent- 
tentia for their treatment of the question of mag- 
netism, since this also rests its truth on the testi- 
mony of the simple-hearted, unlearned, unpreju- 
diced, and unsophisticated observer, as well as on 
the finer-drawn observations and reasonings of 
professional and other teamed persons. 

"It is, then, the paramount duty of the medical 
inquirer to allow nothing to escape his notice which 
may add to the perfection of his art, extend his 
means of relief, or contribute to the solace of suf- 
fering humanity. 

" Upon this general principle we take our stand: 
we assert that, by many credible witnesses, mag- 
netism is announced as such a means, capable of pro- 
ducing (under some circumstances) the most bene- 
ficial results; and granting for one moment, for the 
sake of argument, that all these witnesses may have 
been deceived, and that the whole miscalled science 
is a delusion, yet even this supposition does not 
warrant our indifference or rejection, because it 
may be only that the facts have not been observed 
with sufficient accuracy; and the fact assumed, that 
many witnesses have been deceived, affords the 
strongest evidence that the circumstances observed 
have, at least, so much the semblance of truth as 
accurately to represent its features to many in- 
quirers; and if so, what is it which gives that resem- 
blance! Is it not most probable that the system 
thus observed does possess some, though possibly 
exaggerated, truth ? In such a position, to search 



Dr. Newnham's Exposition of Principles. 195 

after and to ascertain this modicum of truth, is the 
part of wisdom and honesty of purpose. 

" The forgetfulness of this great principle has led 
some medical men to avow their disbelief of mag- 
netism, although they had not studied its phenom- 
ena ; and their being highly esteemed as men of 
science has not preserved them from falling into 
vulgar error, and, curiously enough, has reduced 
them to present in their own perso7is some of the 
higher phenomena of magnetism while in the very 
act of denouncing them, for they have fallen into a 
state of waking slumber, and have become blind and 
deaf, and inaccessible to the general subjects involved in 
the inquiry. 

" This apathy, this cataleptic state of the intellect, 
has been most extraordinary, especially when con- 
trasted with the ordinary proceedings of medical 
men. Under common circumstances, they do not 
hesitate to employ the most heroic experimental 
treatment, and to administer poison in any shape, 
but they dare not conscientiously place their hands 
upon their patient, with the intention of curing his 
maladies, and with a fervent and sincere desire to 
do so; and yet according to the father of medicine, 
Hippocrates, ' Nothing should be omitted in an art 
which interests the whole world, which may be bene- 
ficial to suffering humanity, and which does not 
risk human life or comfort.' " 

So fair, so strong, so urgent an appeal as is this, 
for investigation into the facts of a sgience of which 
Dr. Newnham became one of the best investigators, 



196 Vital Magnetism. 

should come with special force to the medical pro- 
fession, of which he himself was an honored mem- 
ber. When he commenced his investigations he 
was strongly prejudiced against its alleged phe- 
nomena, and a disbeliever in its curative power; 
and for this reason he was urged to write against 
it, material being furnished him for the purpose by 
others ; but, being an honest and fearless man, he 
commenced de novo, and the result was a treatise 
in its favor, instead of against it. 

His work entitled "Human Magnetism" is a 
splendid instance of the triumph of truth over 
error. 

Whatever may be the effect of such pleas on the 
average professional mind in stimulating to an ex- 
amination of the merits of magnetism as a curative 
agent, it cannot be denied that it stands supported 
by an imposing array of facts that are indisputa- 
ble, and numbers among its advocates men who 
stand as high as any in the ranks of science. 

Fortunately those to whom the practical question 
must come, are, in the main, free from the ob- 
stacles which stand in the way of many medical 
men, whose professional pride and self-interest may 
cause them to shake their heads wisely, and doubt- 
ingly deprecate the trial of anything with which 
their experience has not made them familiar, but 
which the fair, unanimous, and convincing tes- 
timony of thousands has shown to be safe and 
harmless, when properly administered, and against 
which no evil consequences have yet been proved, al 



Dr. NewnhanCs Exposition of Principles. 197 

though predicted so often and so persistently dur- 
ing forty years of agitation and investigation. 

To the invalid stricken with nervous disorders 
involving brain and spine, causing long and weary 
days of hopeless suffering, these pages will come, I 
trust, like a new revelation, to inspire hope in the 
hopeless and bring courage to the despairing. 

To you I would say, magnetism will not perform 
impossibilities, but it will cure in many cases that 
are pronounced "incurable," and will give relief "in 
nearly all. To those who are sufferers from para- 
lysis, epilepsy, sciatica, spinal disease, rheu- 
matism, tic-douloureux, lumbago, neuralgia in its 
various excruciating forms, sleeplessness, hysteria, 
malarial troubles, and functional disorders that 
may have defied all other means of cure — to you it 
is mainly important to say that thousands have 
found relief from such distress in nature's own rem- 
edy. 

This fact alone is important, and you can safely 
leave the professions to wrangle over their theoreti- 
cal 'vagaries, whether advocates or opponents. 

The evidence in favor of the practice is but 
glanced at here. In the thirteen volumes of the 
Zoist, so often referred to, over seven hundred cases 
of a desperate character are given in detail, in all 
of which either an absolute cure or permanent re- 
lief was obtained; if we add to this the vast mass of 
private practice in England alone, which never 
came to the public eye, we cannot but feel it to be 
a strange thing, that at this late day there should 



198 Vital Magnetism. 

appear to be a necessity for pressing the claims of 
vital magnetism upon public and professional atten- 
tion. 

If by this resicme of views and collocation of facts, 
experience and observations, I shall contribute to a 
more intelligent comprehension of the utility of this 
wonderful agent, I shall be content, trusting that 
abler pens will continue to diffuse right and worthy 
views of the question, and thus neutralize the mis- 
chief which the weak and foolish pretensions of 
some modern magnetists have wrought in assum- 
ing for themselves supernatural personal endowment, 
disgusting intelligent investigators and thus pre- 
venting them from pursuing the matter in a ra- 
tional mannner. 



XVII. 

THE LESSONS OF HISTORY — SHALL WE BE STUPIDLY 
TIMID OR BRAVELY WISE ? — A WARNING TO OB- 
STRUCTIONISTS. 

In the future of magnetism there will doubtless 
be drawbacks, as there have been in the past. 

The first physiologists of the day are speaking 
in terms of commendation of it as a means of cure; 



The Lessons of History, 199 

but the rank and file of medical practitioners must 
necessarily feel bewildered for a time. 

But, I would say to such as are in doubt, what- 
ever may be your lack of information on this sub- 
ject, do not range yourselves with those who decry 
it unheard, or because of its novelty. 

There are but few advances in science or medi- 
cine that are not opposed and scouted by men of 
small minds, who are fearful that if the groove or 
rut in which they have been running is disturbed 
there will never again be found a place for their 
feet. 

Mr. Lang, of Glasgow, in 1843, set some of these 
facts in a strong light in his reports upon its his- 
tory in Scotland, and vividly describes the oppos- 
ing influences : 

" Plagiarist ! liar ! impostor ! heretic ! were 
among the expressions of malignant hatred lav- 
ished upon Galileo in 1609, as we learn from the 
record of the life of that eminent philosopher. 

"The professor of philosophy of Padua refused 
to look through Galileo's telescope to see whether 
the satellites of Jupiter really existed, and he dem- 
onstrated to his own satisfaction that the facts 
could not be facts. In writing to Kepler regarding 
this, Galileo says : ' Oh, my dear Kepler, how I 
wish that we could have one hearty laugh together. 
Here, at Padua, is the principal professor of phil- 
osophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently re- 
quested to look at the moon and planets through 
my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do. 



200 Vital Magnetism. 

Why are you not here? What shouts of laughter 
we should have at this glorious folly ! and to hear 
the philosopher of Pisa laboring before the Grand 
Duke with logical arguments, as if with magical in- 
cantations to draw the new planets out of the sky.' " 

The immediate reward which Harvey received, 
upon promulgating the doctrine of the circulation 
of the blood, was general ridicule and abuse, and 
a great diminution of his practice ; and we are 
told by Hume that no physician in Europe, who at 
the time had reached forty years of age, ever, to 
the end of his life, adopted the doctrine of the cir- 
culation of the blood. 

Sydenham, another eminent physician, whose 
improvements form an era in the history of medi- 
cine, was by many of his contemporaries called a 
quack and a murderer. 

The author of "Fallacies of the Faculty" writes 
as follows : 

"When a limb is amputated, the surgeons, to 
prevent their patients from bleeding to death, as 
you all know, tie the arteries. In the time of 
Francis the First they followed another fashion ; 
then, and formerly, they were in the habit of 
stanching the blood by the application of boiling 
pitch to the surface of the stump. Ambrose Pa%£, 
principal surgeon to that king, introduced the liga- 
ture as a substitute ; he first tied the arteries. 
Mark the reward of Ambrose Pate : he was hooted 
and howled down by the faculty of physic, who 
ridiculed the idea of hanging human life upon a 



The Lessons of History. 201 

thread, when boiling pitch had stood the test of 
centuries. In vain he pleaded the agony of the 
old application ; in vain he showed the success of 
the ligature. Corporations, colleges, or coteries of 
whatsoever kind, seldom forgive merit in an adver- 
sary ; they continued to persecute him with the 
most remorseless rancor ; luckily he had a spirit to 
despise and a master to protect him against all the 
efforts of their malice. 

"What physician now-a-days would dispute -the 
value of antimony as a medicine ? Yet when first 
introduced its employment was voted a crime. 
But was there no reason ? Yes, it was introduced 
by Paracelsus — Paracelsus, the arch-enemy of the 
established practice ! At the instigation of the 
college, the French Parliament accordingly passed 
an act making it penal to prescribe it. 

" To the Jesuits of Peru, Protestant England 
owes the invaluable bark ; how did Protestant 
England first receive this gift of the Jesuits ? Being 
a " Popish remedy " they at once rejected the drug 
as the invention of the father of all Papists — the 
Devil ! 

" In 1693 Dr. Groenvelt discovered the curative 
power of cantharides, in dropsy ; what an excellent 
thing for Dr. Groenvelt ! Excellent, indeed ! for 
no sooner did his cures begin to make a noise than 
he was at once committed to Newgate prison, by 
warrant of the President of the College of Physi- 
cians for prescribing cantharides internally ! 
Blush, most sapient College of Physicians! — your 



202 Vital Magnetism. 



actual President, Sir Henry Halford, is an humble 
imitator of the ruined Groenvelt." 

" Lady Mary Wortley Montague, while abroad 
with her husband in Turkey, had become acquainted 
with the practice of inoculation for small-pox, and 
on returning to England, in 17 18, she attempted to 
introduce it into the country. 

" With indomitable courage she tried the experi- 
ment upon her own children, and was in conse- 
quence represented as an unnatural mother, who 
cared nothing for her offspring. Lord Wharncliffe, 
in his life of Lady Mary, tells us that " the faculty 
all rose in arms, to a man, foretelling failure, and 
the most disastrous consequences ; the clergy 
descanted from their pulpits on the impiety of thus 
seeking to take events out of the hands of Provi- 
dence, and the common people were taught to hoot 
at her. 

" We now read in grave medical biographies 
that the discovery was instantly hailed, and the 
method adopted by the principal members of that 
profession. Very likely they left this recorded ; for 
whenever an invention or a project (and the same 
may be said of persons) has made its way so well, 
by itself, as to establish a certain reputation, most 
people are sure to find out that they always patron- 
ized it from the beginning, and a happy gift of 
forgetfulness enables many to believe their own 
assertion. 

"But what said Lady Mary of the actual fact 
and actual time ? Why, that the four great physi- 



The Lessons of History. 203 

cians deputed by Government to watch the pro- 
gress of her daughter's innoculation betrayed not 
only such incredulity as to its success, but such an 
unwillingness to have it succeed, such an evident 
spirit of rancor and malignity, that she never cared 
to leave the child alone with them, lest it should, in 
some secret way, suffer from their interference." 

At a later period, when Jenner was endeavoring 
to introduce the process of vaccination, he was 
assailed with the utmost ridicule by the members 
of the learned profession of medicine. 

Certain members of the clerical body discovered 
vaccination to be "Antichrist," and the pulpit was 
the vehicle for fulminations against it, in the same 
manner as at a previous period against the innocu- 
lation of small-pox. 

Dr. Chalmers, in speaking of the first reception 
of the Newtonian philosophy, says : "Authority 
scowled upon it, and taste was disgusted by it, and 
fashion was ashamed of it." For more than thirty 
years after the publication of Newton's discov- 
eries, says Professor Playfair, the Cartesian sys- 
tem kept its ground, and actually the Newtonian 
philosophy first entered the University of Cam- 
bridge under the protection of the Cartesian, by a 
stratagem of Dr. Samuel Clark, who quietly ex- 
plained the views of Newton, without any appear- 
ance of argument or controversy, in the form of 
notes to a new translation which he published of 
the French Cartesian work, long established as the 
text-book by the tutors of the University. 



204 Vital Magnetism. 

With about the same amiable weakness, medi- 
cal men of standing will admit the facts of mag- 
netism under the names of Hypnotism, Braidism, 
&c, while perfectly oblivious of their existence 
under the names of Animal Magnetism, Mesmer- 
ism, &c, as of old. I sympathize with the wish 
to free the science from ill-assorted names; but the 
attempt to ignore the existence of all that has been 
said and done under these well-recognized appel- 
lations is quite as weak as the dodging of the Cam- 
bridge professors on the Newtonian philosophy. 

When the proposal was made for the introduc- 
tion of gas light, Sir Walter Scott ridiculed the 
idea, and in a letter to a friend, sneered at the folly 
of those who were actually talking of sending light 
through the streets in pipes. Sir Walter, however, 
had too much good sense to deny the existence of 
the light when it was actually produced; and be- 
sides becoming the chairman of a gas company in 
Edinburgh, he took advantage of its illuminating 
power at his residence at Abbotsford. 

" Wallaston, the well known scientist, is said to 
have declared of a similar proposal that they ' might 
as well attempt to light London with a slice from 
the moon.' " 

Dr. Elliottson states, in his Hiwian Physiology, 
that when Laennec first published his great work 
he (Dr. E.) procured a stethoscope and investigated 
his statements. " For a length of time," he goes 
on to say, "I found some at the St. Thomas's Hos- 
pital treat percussion and auscultation with ridi- 



The Les so?is of History, 205 

cule, some with absolute indignation, and others, 
for years, treated it with silent contempt, who all, 
I am happy to say, now practice both. I was, there- 
fore, in the habit of studying them in the wards 
alone, and at hours when I expected to be unob- 
served. When at length I advocated and taught 
them in the school, one of my colleagues, I heard, 
pronounced it nonsense, or worse, in his lecture; 
and at the College of Physicians I heard a senior 
fellow, in a Croonian lecture, denounce the folly of 
carrying a piece of wood (some called the stetho- 
scope inutile lignum) into the sick room, and making 
observations, to the destruction of all philosophical 
and dignified views, such as became men whose 
minds have been enlarged by the education which 
Oxford and Cambridge afford. 

" When another fellow of the College was asked 
his opinion of auscultation in the wards of his 
hospital, he at once, as I am informed by the gen- 
tleman who asked the question, condemned it as 
nonsense, and when told that ' Elliottson assured 
his friends that he had a high opinion of it, and 
made his diagnosis of affections of the chest with * 
infinitely more accuracy, by its means,' he replied: 
'Oh! its just the thing for Elliottson to rave 
about ! ' 

" Yet, good sense and truth have prevailed. This 
physician is now addressed as one who had the 
candor to examine auscultation at an early period, 
when others despised it, and who materially aided 
to spread its adoption." 



206 Vital Magnetism. 



The same eminent authority states that,, for 
years after he published his work on prussic acid, 
in 1820, very few persons would employ it; and he 
was not only ill spoken of for recommending what 
was useless, but, till very lately, condemned for 
using dangerous poisons! 

In 1824, the formula for prussic acid was with- 
drawn from the new edition of the Pharmacopoeia, 
then in course of preparation; "yet," adds Dr. 
Elliottson, "it is now employed universally and 
daily by good practitioners of all ranks." 

We have thus the melancholy fact demonstrated, 
that many of the greatest discoveries ever made 
were received at the outset with ridicule and con- 
tempt. Mesmerism endured precisely the same 
ungenerous treatment when put forward by Dr. 
Elliottson, to which allusion has already been 
made. 

" It appears," says Mr. Colquhoun, " that there 
are some persons, even of note, members of learned 
incorporations, fellows of royal, and other privi- 
leged societies, professors in ancient universities, 
&c, to whom, at a certain period of life, the pros- 
pect of an accession of real knowledge, instead of 
being agreeable and satisfactory, is, on the contrary, 
rather unpleasant, painful, and humiliating. 

" Every man who then ventures to present them 
with novel facts or ideas, or in any way attempts to 
rectify or extend their notions of things, is regard- 
ed by them as an invader, — a robber, — an enemy 
to what they have been accustomed to conceive to 



The Lessons of History. 207 

be their vested rights in literature and science. 
Goethe, the celebrated German poet, is reputed to 
have said, upon some particular occasion, that 
when, from time to time, a man arises who is for- 
tunate enough to discover one of the grand secrets 
of nature, ten others immediately start up, who in- 
dustriously and strenuously endeavor to conceal it 
again from view. 

" It is so — was — and probably ever shall be. The 
conflict between light and darkness appears to be 
interminable. 

" The race of the obscurantist in politics, in science, 
and in literature, promises to survive to the end of 
time. To use the language of a favorite old au- 
thor, they are exceedingly angry with every one 
that hath outgrown his cherrystones and rattles, 
speak evil at a venture of things they know not, 
and, like mastiffs, are fiercer for being kept in the 
dark." 

Lang observes: — "The doctors refused to look 
through Galileo's telescope ; and because certain 
things were written in their books, they declined 
to examine the great book of nature for themselves. 
The old practitioners are resolutely opposed to inno- 
vation, and the more youthful, afraid of the frowns 
of their seniors, follow servilely in their footsteps. 
It was said that Dr. Elliottson for a time lost a 
large part of his practice, in consequence of his 
adoption and advocacy of magnetism, but this was 
only temporary, and it returned to him again with 
largely increased volume. 



208 Vital Magnetism. 

An able literary and political journal of the day, 
the Examiner, in noticing these attacks on Dr. El- 
liottson, says: — " If, as we apprehend to be the 
case, the existence of certain phenomena, undoubt- 
edly of great interest and probably of great im- 
portance in a physiological view, is pretty gener- 
ally admitted to be the result of recent experiments, 
it is high time to cease calling names, and begin 
rational discussion. The treatment to which Dr. 
Elliottson has been exposed from the time these 
questions were started, the members of a liberal 
calling should surely have reserved for the interested 
quack, or the vain pretender. There has been as 
little of either in the career of this distinguished 
physician, as in that of the foremost member of the 
profession he had so long assisted and adorned. 
Policy and worldly considerations apart — no man 
had better claims to be respectfully listened to. 
His admitted learning, his foregone recognized 
discoveries in medicine, his unimpeached veracity 
and high character, as they qualified him for that 
course which only the few are at any time fit to 
take, should have saved him from those vulgar im- 
putations which the many are at all times prone to 
indulge. 

" It is surely time that the word of an intelligent 
physician or surgeon — of a man whom the world 
would believe, without hesitation, on any ordinary 
topic — should at once be received when he unfolds 
truths of grave import to society. It is surely 
time to abandon implicit confidence in certain 



The Lessons of History. 209 

dogmas to be found in books, and to walk abroad 
and behold ' the visible and living world.'" 

" There are few things," says Bailey, " more dis- 
gusting to an enlightened mind than to see a num- 
ber of men, a mob, whether learned or illiterate, 
who have never scrutinized the foundation of their 
opinions, assailing with contumely an individual 
who, after the labor of research and reflection, 
has adopted different sentiments from theirs, and 
pluming themselves on the notion of superior 
' knowledge,' because their understandings have 
been tenacious of prejudice." And Jobald, a 
French writer, remarks: "Galileo, Newton, Salo- 
mon de Caus, Volta, Fulton, Winser, Arkwright, 
Gall, and all who have presented themselves, with 
a truth in their hand, at the door of this great 
Bedlam called the world, have been received with 
stones and hisses." 

Another author has said: "Whilst the unlearned 
were all busied in getting down to the bottom of 
the well where Truth keeps her little court, were 
the learned, in their way, as busy in pumping her 
up through the conduits of dialectic induction; 
they concerned themselves not with Facts — they 
Reasoned." 

The practical lesson to be learned from all this 
is to avoid the pitfalls which intolerant opinion 
has so often in the past digged for its own destruc- 
tion, and learn to be careful of dogmatic assertion 
upon new discoveries that we have not personally 
investigated. 



210 Vital Magnetism. 

"Nothing," says Sir Humphrey Davy, "has so 
much checked the progress of philosophy as the 
confidence of teachers in delivering dogmas as 
truths which it would be presumptuous to question. 
It was this spirit which, for more than ten centu- 
ries, made the crude physics of Aristotle the natural 
philosophy of the whole of Europe. It was this 
spirit which produced the imprisonment of the 
elder Bacon and the recantation of Galileo. It is 
this spirit, notwithstanding the example of the sec- 
ond Bacon, assisted by his reproof, his genius and 
his influence, which has, even in later times, attached 
men to imaginary systems — to mere abstracted 
combinations of words — rather than to the living 
and visible world, and which has often induced them 
to delight more in brilliant dreams than in beauti- 
ful and grand realities. ," 

Fourcroy, the celebrated chemist, thus describes 
the difficulties which environed magnetism in his 
day: "The cold inactivity of some; the affected in- 
difference of others; the contempt expressed by 
one person; the irritated self-love, and the languid 
attachment of another for the doctrine of his an- 
cestors; the dread of novelty, and the prejudices 
of every kind; all the mean passions which, gliding 
into society and playing their parts in civil life, are 
also to be met with in the sciences; the sarcasms 
and epigrams with which they arm conversation — 
all these retard for a short time, perhaps for some 
years, the progress of new ideas; but truth ulti- 
mately overcomes every obstacle. Neither the 



The Lessons of History. 211 

clamors of envy, nor the resistance of prejudice 
nor the opposition of ignorance, can terrify it. It 
is the rock against which the impotent waves of 
human passion are broken. 

"When the vivid light of truth strikes those 
minds that are properly adapted to feel its influ- 
ence, it soon inspires them with a sufficient degree 
of force to make them proclaim it with confidence, 
and to establish its rights on a solid foundation." 

I would not argue that all these bitter words 
hold good in regard to the reception of magnetism 
in this day ; still, they are true -as against many 
who close their eyes with prejudiced blindness even 
now, else the words of Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter 
would not have been penned in 1875, when he said, 
in referring to mesmeric phenomena : " Some there 
are who persist in the determination to disbelieve in 
the genuineness of all the asserted facts, desig- 
nating them as ' all humbug,' and maintaining that 
none but fools or knaves could uphold such non- 
sense. 

" Such persons, however, must now find them- 
selves in the unenviable predicament of being 
obliged to place some of their best friends in one 
or other of these two categories ; since it is impos- 
sible to go into any kind of society, literary or sci- 
entific, professional or lay, gentle or simple, with- 
out finding a large proportion of intelligent and 
truthful persons, such as would be regarded as 
trustworthy on all other subjects, who affirm that 
they have been themselves the actors in some one or 



212 Vital Magnetism 



another of the performances in question, and that, 
however strange the phenomena may seem, they 
are nevertheless genuine." " The members of the 
medical profession, accustomed to the vagaries of 
hysteria, and recognizing the hysterical constitu- 
tion of a large proportion of the subjects of mes- 
meric and spiritualistic agency, have too generally 
satisfied themselves with the phrase 'all hysteri- 
cal,' a reply which affords no real information to 
those inquirers who think that their doctors ought 
to help them to a solution of such difficulties, and 
which has now been fully proved to be incorrect by 
the fact that steady, sensible, middle-aged men, 
having all their wits about them, are sometimes 
found to be as good subjects of certain of these 
operations as the susceptible young females who 
are deservedly regarded with so much suspicion." 
(Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 612.) 

So it is quite evident that so eminent an author- 
ity of the present day as Dr. Carpenter feels called 
upon to give some of his professional brethren a 
cutting reproof for their stubborn unbelief and 
supercilious attitude. 

The advance of the science and practice of mag- 
netism has been delayed and obstructed by two 
classes of the community, one of which will steadily 
shut its eyes to all effects, no matter how well 
the facts may be authenticated, unless you are ready 
to furnish a full explanation of cause simultaneously 
with the effect. We have already seen how unreason- 
able and foolish such hard-headed, conservative 



The Lessons of History. 213 

wiseacres can become upon .the presentation of 
anything new, that is opposed to their former and 
preconceived ideas, no matter what may be its 
promise of progress and utility. It is quite human 
and natural to demand such explanations, and it 
would be very gratifying if we could make them ; 
but, so far as I can see, little progress has been 
made in that direction, and I believe that more 
real progress would be made by relegating such 
questions for the present to the domain occupied 
by other incomprehensible natural forces which, like 
magnetism, are only known through their effects. 

Instead of multiplying doubtful hypotheses, 
which cannot satisfy this morbid curiosity, I would 
multiply instances of cure. Relief of human woe 
is a nobler work and a better answer to all cavil- 
ling. 

The high tribute which Dr. Carpenter pays to 
the value of Hypnotic treatment in disease, in his 
valuable work on Mental Physiology, corrobo- 
rated by the cases which he gives in illustration, 
is worth more than all the chapters he devotes to 
the probable ways by which nature works, although 
so entertainingly written; for, while he will not 
succeed in convincing men of the truth of specula- 
tions, opposed as they are in many cases by their 
own personal experience, his statements of cure 
will not be doubted — certainly not by any who 
know the complete trustworthiness of the author. 

Another class of obstructionists in magnetic 
science is made up of that credulous, superstitious 



214 Vital Magnetism. 

element of humanity, who, while believing the evi- 
dence of their senses, are disposed to jump to the 
conclusion that such wondrous effects must be of 
a miraculous or supernatural character. 

They ignore all natural law, and if they are the 
recipients of the power in any remarkable degree, 
they claim for themselves some supernatural or per- 
sonal endowment. 

This class disgust with their pretensions many 
an honest seeker who might otherwise be quite 
willing to accept natural effects, although admitted 
to be extraordinary, and beyond explanation. We 
have only to use this beneficent force of nature 
as we would any other of her grand provisions for 
man's welfare, content with the blessings it be- 
stows, and grateful for a power to relieve human 
pain and suffering so wisely provided by Him who 
never errs in establishing natural law, although He 
may not vouchsafe to us its full explanation. 

In conclusion, let me quote the words of Baron 
Von Reichenbach, who, in philosophizing upon the 
outlook of the branch of this subject embraced in 
odic force, says : "He who has not grudged the la- 
bor of making himself acquainted with these re- 
sults, will share my conviction that every physiol- 
ogist and every physician must not only notice, 
but become thoroughly master of them (magnetic 
truths) if he is not contented to remain in ignorance 
of a whole series of important truths. 

"The physiologist will discover in sensitives a 
group of vital functions which have been hitherto 



The Lessons of History. 215 

overlooked, and the physician will find in od a 
power without which he will not only not be able to 
give any assistance in numerous cases, but even to 
understand the symptoms he beholds, much less to 
have any mastery over them. I do not mean that 
every physician should be a magnetizer; far from 
it : but a physician who understands nothing 
about the terrestrial magnetism of position, lunar 
and solar od, the odic poles of man, the odic in- 
fluence of baths, the partial pass or odic obstruc- 
tions, or the mighty influence of od on spasms, — 
nay, who does not know in what direction to stand 
when he feels a patient's pulse, must certainly play 
a miserable part by the bedside of a sensitive. The 
present and future revelation of the laws of od, 
must cause almost a revolution in whole sections of 
therapeutics." 



APPENDIX. 



DR. ELLIOTSON S ADJURATION TO THE PROFESSION, 
AND DR. ESDAILE'S REMARKABLE PROTEST TO THE 

AMERICAN CONGRESS MAGNETISM THE FIRST 

" ANAESTHETIC." 

Much has already been presented to establish the 
claims and prove the merits of vital magnetism in 
an exceedingly wide range of diseases; the diffi- 
culty has been to reduce the number of typical 
cases within the limits of a work like this. Pass- 
ing by the vast array of authenticated facts to be 
found in the magnetic literature of continental 
Europe, the earnest student is asked to look at the 
record of a single English work to which reference 
has already frequently been made, viz.: The Zoist, in 
the thirteen volumes of which will be found over 
four thousand pages of facts and statements, prop- 
erly authenticated, contributed mainly by distin- 
guished members of the medical profession of 
England. To facilitate the investigation, an index 
is appended, indicating the form of disease and the 
number of the volume in which it may be found. 
These cases are detailed with great professional 



2i 8 Vital Magnetism. 

minuteness, and have mainly been reviewed by that 
eminent physiologist, Dr. John Elliottson, who, at 
the conclusion of his Harveian oration, delivered 
to the College of Physicians in London, June 27th, 
1846, appealed to his compeers, in the portion of 
the address devoted to Vital Magnetism, in these 
terms: 

" It is the imperative, the solemn duty of the 
profession anxiously and dispassionately to deter- 
mine these points by experiment, each man for 
himself. I have done so for ten years, and fear- 
lessly declare that the phenomena, the prevention 
of pain under surgical operations, the production of 
repose and comfort in diseases, and the cure of 
many, even after the failure of all ordinary means, 
are true. 

" In the name, therefore, of the love of truth, in 
the name of the dignity of our profession, in the 
name of the good of all mankind, I implore you 
carefully to investigate this important subject." 

In the same spirit I respectfully call attention to 
the annexed index; also to this "protest " addressed 
to the American Congress by Dr. Esdaile, the true 
discoverer of painless surgery: 

Protest and Petition of James Esdaile, M. D., Surgeon H. E. 
I. C. S., to the Members of the American Congress : 

Respectfully showeth, — that the writer, a British subject, 
and a surgeon in the East India Company service, has read 
with great astonishment the following statement in a Report 
of the Select Committee appointed by the United States 



Appendix. 219 

Government, to decide who discovered the anaesthetic virtues 
of ether, so that Congress might bestow upon him the reward 
of $100,000. 

The Report says : " At various periods, and in 
various ages, hope has been excited in the human 
breast that this great agent (the means of produc- 
ing insensibility to pain) had been found; but all 
proved delusive, and hope as often died away, 
until the discovery now under consideration burst 
upon the world from our own country and in our 
own day. 

" Then, and not till then, was the time-cherished hope 
realized, that the knife would lose its sting, and that 
blood might follow its edge without pain." 

In defense of truth and justice, I must take the 
liberty to inform Congress, that this statement is 
not only incorrect, but is perfectly untrue, and that 
your Committee have been grievously misled by 
culpably ignorant or corrupt witnesses, — corrupt to 
the extent of suppressing important evidence op- 
posed to what is stated in the Report. In support 
of this assertion, I have to respectfully represent 
to Congress, that in April, 1845, having succeeded 
on the first trial in performing a painless operation 
upon a person in the mesmeric trance, I prosecuted 
the subject still further, and with such success that 
in eight months I had performed seventy-three pain- 
less operations, many of them of the gravest de- 
scription, an account of which was published by 
Messrs. Longman & Co., London, in 1846. This 
work is called" Mesmerism in India," and was im- 



22G Vital Magnetism, 

mediately reprinted in America. In July, 1846, I 
reported to the Government of India that I had 
performed upwards of one hundred painless ope- 
rations, and offered to satisfy any number of per- 
sons, in whom the Government had confidence, of 
the truth of my statements, 

The Government hereupon appointed a commit- 
tee to report upon mesmeric operations to be per- 
formed by me in their presence. Six severe ope- 
rations were performed by me in the presence of 
the Committee during a fortnight that they sat, 
and the Committee arrived at the following general 
result on the question of pain during the mesme- 
ric surgical operations witnessed by them ; 

"That, in three severe cases, there is no proof 
whatever that any pain was suffered, and that in 
the three other cases the manifestations of pain 
during the operation are opposed by the positive 
statement of the patient that no pain was expe- 
rienced/* 

The Government, in remarking upon the Report 
of the Committee to the Chairman, said : 

"So far has the possibility of rendering the most 
serious surgical operations painless to the subject 
of them been, in his Honor's opinion, established 
by the late experiments^ performed under the eye 
of a committee appointed for the purpose, as to 
render it incumbent upon the Government to af- 
ford to the meritorious and zealous officer, by 
whom the subject was first brought to its notice, 



Appendix, 221 

such assistance as may facilitate his investigations 
and enable him to prosecute his interesting experi- 
ments, under the most favorable and promising 
circumstances. With this view, his Honor has 
determined, with the sanction of the Supreme 
Government, to place Dr. Esdaile for one year in 
charge of a small experimental hospital in some 
favorable situation in Calcutta, in order that he 
may, as recommended by the Committee, extend 
his investigations to the applicability of this al- 
leged agency to all descriptions of cases, medical 
as well as surgical, and all classes of patients, 
European as well as native." 

During the year of experiment, forty capital 
mesmeric operations were performed in the Mes- 
meric Hospital, and at the end of the year my suc- 
cess was acknowledged in a minute of the Gov- 
ernor-General in Council, and I was rewarded in 
being made a presidency surgeon of Calcutta, that 
the natives might continue to enjoy the benefits of 
Mesmerism. 

So that painless surgery, by means of Mesmerism, had 
been reduced by me to a regular, every-day system, in 
Bengal, long before ether had been heard of . Of which 
fact Congress may still further satisfy themselves 
by referring to Dr. Huffnagle, Consul for the 
United States at Calcutta, who, in October, 1846, 
assisted at the removal of a scrotal tumor weighing 
103 lbs., of which the patient was quite unconscious, 
and ultimately perfectly recovered. 



222 Vital Magnetism. 

The simple and notorious fact is, that painless 
surgery by means of Mesmerism, years before 
ether was heard of, was as common in my hos- 
pitals as it has since become in Europe under the 
influence of chloroform, and nearly three hundred 
capital mesmeric operations had been performed 
by me before leaving India, two years ago. 

This being the actual state of the case regarding 
the history of painless surgery, the American Con- 
gress will perceive that I am fully justified in as- 
serting that their committee have been misled by 
ignorant or corrupt witnesses ; and that however 
deserving of reward the discoverer of ether may 
be, he was only copying by a drug what had al- 
ready been done by myself and others, by a much 
safer and pleasanter natural power mercifully im- 
planted in the human constitution. 

Congress will, I doubt not, be indignant at the 
daring and unprincipled suppression of evidence 
that I have exposed to them, and will be at a loss 
to imagine the motives for such an offense. 

As politicians, the members of Congress must be 
aware of the perverting, distorting, unfair repre- 
sentations of party spirit, by which history itself 
has become "a lie," according to a celebrated Eng- 
lish statesman. 

Unfortunately this vice is not confined to politics, 
but exists in all professions, and in an intensely dis- 
' graceful degree, I lament to say, in that of medicine. 

Mesmerism, from its truth, has been excommuni- 
cated by the doctors without knowledge or exam- 



Appendix. 223 

ination, and all the medical journals having rashly 
and ignorantly pronounced against it, afterward 
conspired together in defense of their wrong-doing, 
and trusted to extinguish the obnoxious doctrine 
by keeping the medical profession and the public 
in total ignorance of the matter. They have hith- 
erto succeeded so well in this that it is possible the 
medical witnesses examined by your committee 
may only have been laboring under the most gross 
ignorance in giving their evidence ; but the Ameri- 
can Congress will not lower itself so much in the 
eyes of the civilized world as to adopt the verdict 
of an ignorant and incompetent jury. 

If, on the other hand, it shall appear that im- 
portant evidence has been deliberately suppressed 
by the witnesses, then the world will expect that 
Congress, in its wisdom and justice, will repudiate 
the report of its committee, and severely punish 
those who would have misled it. 

It is with no intention of competing for the dol- 
lars in question that I have taken the liberty to ad- 
dress you (although the man who proved that 
painless surgery could be practiced on a whole 
people, might look for some reward), as these seem 
irrevocably destined to " one of three citizens of 
the United States " who had the sense to seek for 
some drug by which to imitate what I had already 
done by Mesmerism. 

But, in the new judicial inquiry recommended 
by the Committee, to determine which of my three 
imitators is to be the lucky winner of the dollars, 



224 Vital Magnetisi7i. 

I respectfully petition Congress to be permitted to 
adduce proof in support of what I have now ad- 
vanced, by which an honorable opportunity will be 
afforded for correcting the errors in the Commit- 
tee's Report, and Congress will be saved the shame 
of sanctioning by its highauthority another of the 
lies of history. 

I have the honor to be, 

Your most obedient servant, 
JAMES ESDAILE, M. D 

Fairmount, Perth, Scotland, 
8th August, 1853. 

Says Dr. John Elliottson, in reviewing Dr. Es- 
daile's practice, in I853: 

" These operations consisted of some of the most 
appalling in the annals of surgery, and we speak 
practically when we say, that we do not believe a 
similar result will be obtained, as regards the ab- 
sence of fatal cases, by the inhalation of ether or 
chloroform. The one is a health-restoring power — 
the other is a drug; one enables the nervous sys- 
tem to sustain great shocks without leaving any 
injurious consequences. The other produces a 
state of profound stupor, requiring great care 
during its exhibition, and even, with the greatest 
care, frequently fatal." 

"The rapid production of mesmeric anaesthesia 
is the great desideratum of the day " 



LITERATURE OF VITAL MAGNETISM 



Animal Magnetism. By Alphonse Teste, M. D. D. Spell- 
man, M. D., A. M., Translator. Fellow of the Dublin College 
of Physicians. London, 1845. 

Animal Magnetism. By John Ashburner, M. B. Member 
of the Royal Irish Academy. London, 1867. 

Mesmerism in India and its Practical Application in Surgery 
and Medicine. By James Esdaile, M. D. Presidency Surgeon, 
Bengal, India. 1843. Reprint by Silas Andrews & Son, Hart- 
ford, 1850. 

Human Magnetism. By W. Newnham, M. R. S. L. The 
Utility of its Application for the Relief of Human Suffering. 
London, 1845. 

Hypnotism (Neurhypnology), or the Rationale of Nervous 
Sleep ; with numerous cases of its successful application in the 
relief and cure of diseases. By James Braid, M. D^ Surgeon 
and M. R.C. S. E., C. M. W. S., &c. London, 1848. 

Facts in Mesmerism. By Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend, 
A. M. Late of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. London, 1844. 

Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Light, Crystal- 
lization and Chemical Attraction in their relations to Vital Force. 
By Karl, Baron Von Reichenbach, Ph. Dr, Translated by 
Wm. Gregory, M. D., F. R. S. E. Professor of Chemistry in 
the University of Edinburgh. London, 1850. 

Isis Revelata: An Inquiry into the Origin, Progress and 
Present State of Animal Magnetism. By J. C. Colquhoun. 
Advocate. Edinburgh. 1844. 



226 Vital Magnetism: 

Report of the Experiments on Animal Magnetism made by 
a Committee of the Medical Section of the French Royal 
Academy of Sciences. Read at the meetings of the 21st and 
28th of June, 1 831. Translated by J. C. Colquhoun. Edin- 
burgh, 1833. 

Mesmerism and its Opponents. By Rev. J. Sandby, M. A. 
London, 1848. 

History, Phenomena and Practice of Mesmerism ; with re- 
ports of Cases Developed in Scotland. By William Lang. 1843. 

Curative Powers of Mesmerism ; with one hundred and fifty 
eases covering various forms of disease. By Thomas Capern. 
London, 1851. 

Mesmerism Not Miracle. By a Mesmeric Practitioner. 
Showing that Mesmeric Cures are not Supernatural. By Geo. 
Barth. London, 1853. 

Letters on Mesmerism. By Harriet Martineau. London, 
1845. 

Somnolism and Psycheism, Phenomena of Nervation as Re- 
vealed by Vital Magnetism or Mesmerism, considered Physio- 
logically and Philosophically ; Avith Mesmeric Experience. 
By Joseph W. Haddock, M. D. London, 1S51. 

Seven Lectures on Somnambulism. Translated from the 
German of Dr. Arnold Wienholt. By J. C. Colquhoun. Edin- 
burgh, 1845. 

Animal Magnetism Delineated by its Professors : a Review 
of its History in Germany, France, and England. Report' 
from British and Foreign M. R., 1S39. 

Annales du Magnetisme. 8 volumes. Paris, 18 14-16. 

Bibliotheque du Magnetisme Animal. 8 volumes, lb. 
1817-19. 

Healing by the Hand and Will. By Sir Charles Isham. 
London, 1862. 

Elemens du Magnetisme Animal. M. De Lausanne. Paris, 
1818. 



Its Litej'ature. 227 

Puissance de L'Electricite Animal, ou Magnetisme Vital. 
Dr. J. Pigeaire. Paris, 1839. 

Lectures on Zoistic Magnetism. By W. Luresby, D. D., 
F. R. S. London, 1849. 

Mesmerism in Disease. Plain Facts and Cases. By Dr. H. 
Storer. London, 1845. 

Magnetisme et Magnetotherapie et sur Le Gyro Magnetisme. 
By Le Compte de Szapary. Paris, 1854. 

Manual Practique de Magnetisme Animal et son Application 
au Traitement des Maladies. 

Animal Magnetism : History of the Principles ; with Cures 
and Cases. By Dr. G. Winter, 1801. 

Vital Magnetism. By Rev. T. Pyne. London, 1844. 

Report of Cases treated in the Mesmeric Hospital, from 
June to December, 1847. With the Reports of the official Vis- 
itors. Printed by order of Government. December, 1848. 

Philosophy of Animated Nature ; or the Laws and Action of 
the Nervous System. By G. Calvert Holland, M. D. ; Physi- 
cian Extraordinary to the Sheffield General Infirmary. London, 
1848. 

The Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathol- 
ogy. Edited by Forbes Winslow, M.D., England, 1849. 

Illustrations and Enquiries relating to Mesmerism. By the 
Rev. S. R. Maitland, D. D., F. R. S., F. S, A. London, 1849. 

The Hand Book of Mesmerism. For the Guidance and In- 
struction of All Persons who desire to practice Mesmerism for 
the cure of Diseases. To which is annexed the Rules and 
Regulations of the Mesmeric Infirmary, No. 9 Bedford St.;? j 
Bedford Square, London ; with a list of the Subscribers to it. ' 
1850. 

Practical Instruction in Animal Magnetism. By J. P. F. 
Deleuze. Translated by T. C. Hartshorn. With Notes, and a 
Life, by Dr. Foissac. London, 1850. 



228 Vital Magnetism 



The Principle of Health Transferable. (Two Editions.) 
London, 1850. 

Mesmerism : Its Processes, Uses and Advantages Explained ; 
with Directions for its Application in the Sick Cham- 
ber. By S. D. Saunders, late Hon. Secretary to the Bristol 
Mesmeric Institute. London, 1850. 

The Mighty Curative Powers of Mesmerism ; with a great 
mass of cures. By Thomas Capern, Secretary to the London 
Mesmeric Infirmary. London, 1851. 

Letters to a Candid Enquirer on Animal Magnetism. By 
William Gregory, M. D., F. R. S. E., Professor of Chemistry in 
the University of Edinburgh. London, 185 1. 

Lectures on Mesmerism. Delivered at the Rotunda, Dublin. 
By J. W. Jackson. 1851. 

" We have heard much of contagion, and the word is one of 
terror ; but it would seem that nature has been more just than 
we deemed, for the principle of health is as transferable as that 
of sickness, and a vigorous operator is a fountain of sanative 
influence whence the decrepit and ailing may derive a fresh 
supply of vital force." 

Recueil d'Operations Chirurgicales Practiquees sur les sujets 
Magnetises. Par A. Loysel, Docteur en Medicine, a Cherbourg. 
Cherbourg, 1852. 

The Magnetoscope. A Philosophical Essay on the Mag- 
netoid characteristics of Elementary Principles, and their rela- 
tions to the Organization of Man. By T. Leger, Doctor of the 
Medical Faculty of Paris ; late Professor of Anatomy at the 
Practical School ; Fellow of the Society of Sciences and Arts 
of the Department of the Marne ; late Professor of the Medical 
College of Mexico, etc., etc. London, 1852. 

Buckland's Hand Book of Mesmerism. (Three editions.) 
London, 1852. 

Mesmerism Solved, Divested of Mystery, and shown to be sim- 
ply an overlooked Branch of Medical Science, to be received 



Its Literature, 229 

and practiced as an auxiliary by the Medical Professors and 
Heads of Families, for curative purposes. By Dr. Jones, 
London, 1853. 

Hypnotic Therapeutics ; illustrated by Cases. By James 
Braid, M.R.C.S., Edin., M.U.S., etc. Reprint from the Month- 
ly Journal of Medical Science, 1853. 

Mesmerism, and the Diseases to which it is most applicable. 
By Falconer Mills. Dublin, 1854. 

Medicina Mentis. By Hugh Hastings, M.D. Cheltenham, 
England, 1854. 

The Illustrated Practical Mesmerist, curative and scientific. 
By William Davey. Edinburgh, 1854. 

Bulletin de l'Athenee Magnetique de Lyon. Journal des 
Sciences Psycho-Physiques. Lyons, 1S54. 

Errors Dispelled ; or, Mesmerism without Sleep, and Mes- 
merism with Medicine. By S. D. Saunders, Medical Mesmer- 
ist. Clifton, England, 1855. 

Heilkraft des tJi^rischen Magnetismus nach eigenerv Beobacht- 
ungen. By Dr. Weinholt, of Bremen. 3 vols. 8vo : 1802-1805. 

Le Magnetisme Animal, considere comme moy en Thera- 
peutique ; son application auTraitment de deux cas remarqua- 
bles de Neuropathic Par Charles de Resimont, Docteur en 
Medicine de la Faculte de la Paris, 1843. 

Journal du Magnetisme. Par une Societe de Magnetiseurs 
et des Medecins sous la direction de M. Le Baron Du Potet. 

1845. 

The Curative Power of Vital Magnetism verified by Actual 
Application to numerous cases of disease. By Dr. Jones, 
London, 1845. 

The Harveian Oration delivered before the Royal College of 
Physicians, London. By Dr. John Eliottson, Cantab. F.R.S., 
1846. 



230 Vital Magnetism. 

Should not investigation take a practical turn in 
this country when we look abroad, see how many 
able minds have grappled successfully with the 
problems of this branch of vital science, and de- 
monstrated its possibilities ? 

These are but a tithe of the whole, but sufficient, 
I hope, to stimulate and instruct the student in this 
branch of physics. 



INDEX TO CASES IN THE "ZOIST." 



Abscess ..... Volume 13 

Abscess, Lumbar . .... 6, 9 

Acid, nitric, painless application of . . 7 

After pains . . . . . 5, 11, 13 

Ancles, weakness of ..... 10 

Ancles, sprained 11, 13 

Arm, stiff ....... 6 

Asthma 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 15 

Bladder 4, 5, 8 

Blindness . . . . 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 

Bone cured 12 

Brain, overworked ...... 3 

Brain, inflammatory excitement of . .6, 7, 
Breasts, inflamed . . . . 11, 12 

Bronchitis ....... 3 

Burns . . . . . . 10, 12 

Catalepsy 13 

Caustic, painless application of ... 4 

Chest 5, 12 

Chilblains 11 

Chlorosis 8 

Cholera ...... 9 



232 Index to Cases in the u Zoist." 



Coma cured 


. 


. 




. . 




11 


Constipation 


. 


. 




. 




1 


Consumption 


. 


. 


. 


2 > " 


;, 8, 


12 


Contractions 


. 


. 








3,6 


Convulsions 


. 


. 


. 


4, 


11. 


12 


Cough 


. 


. 






6, 


10 


Cutaneous diseases 


. 


. 




10, 


11, 


12 


Deafness . 


. 


• 2, 4. 


. 5> 


8, 11, 


12, 


13 


D. B. B. Morrison, 


also 


reporting 


21] 


[ cases of 


deafne&s cured 


by him 








12 


Debility 


. 


3, 5, 


7, 


9, 10, 


12, 


13 


Delirium 


. 


. 






2, 


12 


Delirum tremens 


. 


. 


. 


. 8, 


II, 


13 


Diarrhoea 


, 


. 






II, 


13 


Dropsy 


. 


. 




7,8, 


IO, 


12 


Dyspepsia 


. 


. 


. 


5, 


12, 


13 


Ear abscess of . 


. 


. 




. 


. 


8 


Earache 


. 


. 


. 


. 




11 


Elephantiasis 


. 


. 






. 


11 


Epilepsy 


1, 2, 


3, 4, 5> 6 , 7, 


8, 


9, 10, 


II, 


13 


Erysipelas 








7,8, 


IO, 


12 


Eyes, agony of 


. 


. 


. 






7 


Eyelids, spasm of 


. 


. 




. 




10 


Emaciation. . . 


. 


. 




. 


. 


8 


Face, swelled . 


, . 


. 




, . 




6 


Female ailments 


. 


• . . 




. 




4 


Fever 










7, 


13 


Fingers 


. 


. 




9» 


12, 


13 


Foot 












12 


Fractures 


. 


• • . 




• 


9, 


11 


Ganglion 


. 


. 




. 




12 



Index to Cases in the " Zoist." 



2 33 



Gout . 

Gout, rheumatic 

Glands, enlarged 

Grief, effects of, cured 

Gums 

Hand . 



Headache . 

Heart, affection of 

Hiccough 

Hip . 

Hoemorrhage 

Hydrophobia . 

Hypochondriasis 

Hysteria . 

Inflammation 

Insanity 

Joints, enlarged 

Jumping, fit 

Kidney . 

Knee, diseased 

Leg, diseased 

Leprosy 

Liver, diseased 

Lockjaw . 

Lung, diseased 

Lung, bleeding from 

Muscular pains, cured . 

Neck, twisted 

Neck, rigid . 

Nervousness, cured 

Neuralgia 



5, 6, 3, 9, 10, 12 

ir 

6 

1 

7, 11 
ii, 13 

2, 3, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13 

1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12 

2,5 

. 9 

. . . 7,8 

3, 6, 9 

2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, ii, 13 

1, 3, 5, 6 , 8 , 9, i°, 11 

3, 4, 10, 11, 12 

4, 5, 6 > 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 

10 

6 

. 9 

2, 5, 6 , 8, i°, 11, 12 

8, 12 
12 

12,8 
. 6, 7, 10, 12, 13 

• 4, 7, 11, 13 

8 

. 1 

• • • 5,8 

5, I 2 , 13 

2, 3, 7,8, 10, 12, 13 

1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6 , 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 



234 Index to Cases in the " Zoist" 

Operations, painless surgical, i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 

9, 10, 11, 12, 13. 
Opthalmia, cured . . 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 

Ovarian, disease 12, 13 

Pain, relieved . . . 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13 
Palpitation, cured . . . . 2, 7, 8, 10 

Parturition, painless . . 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 

Paralysis, cured. . 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 

[Delueze also reports over 60 cases of cure in 
France.] 

Pericarditis • . . . . . . 9 

Polypus 8, 9 

Prolapsus, reduced 4 

Prostate Gland 7 

Quinsy 2, 7 

Rheumatism, cured, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 
11, 12, 13. 

Ringworm 12 

St. Vitus's dance, cured . . 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 

Scrofula ........ 3 

Short sightedness . ... 5 

Sleeplessness 6 

Speech, recovered . . 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 
Spinal affection, cured . . 2,4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12 

Stomach, pain of 5, 8 

Tabes, mesenterica 13 

Tetanus 5, 6 

Throat disease 6, 12 

Toothache 7, 10, 11, 12 

Trance . .... 5, 9, 13 



Index to Cases in the " Zoist." 235 

Ulcers . . . . . . 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13 

Unconscious action of brain ... 6 

Uterine disease 3, 8, 11 

Vomiting 7, 8, 12 



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